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<by ElrodW
Many, many thanks to Megan for helping turn a simple concept for an image into something very nice for the story. Hugs for your help. And thanks to the volunteers who suffered through the first drafts to help get this story edited. Now - enjoy. Merry Christmas. |
Copyright © 2013 ElrodW
All Rights Reserved.
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by ElrodW
Joel glanced furtively around him as he trudged through the deserted street. Twilight had passed, and the buildings and streetlights cast no light to pierce the darkness. Only the faint moonlight, reflecting off a dusting of snow, gave any light to the scene. Joel knew it was dangerous to be out like this; all around him was evidence of desperation and peril. Many storefront windows were shattered, the broken glass shards acting like tiny prisms and mirrors reflecting the moonlight — beautiful, but razor-sharp and deadly. Even in the daylight, the very few people who were out walked in the streets, not the sidewalk. It wasn't just the broken glass waiting to shred any flesh that happened to fall upon itj; several gangs were even more dangerous as they tried to take advantage of the chaos.
Joel carried a large, heavy, rectangular box in his hands, stamped with the letters MRE. Despite the dangers, Joel had to venture out occasionally to get some of the few supplies that were regularly airdropped into the city. There were no other supplies — only what fell from the sky and the military transports that dared not land.
Across the street in the central plaza of the city stood a tall Christmas tree, a black silhouette against the dark blue sky. Without having to see the details, Joel knew it was decorated happily, but no-one ventured here to see it. Beneath the tree were several other Christmas and holiday displays, equally dark and gloomy, including a life-sized nativity scene — put up by the city in bold defiance.
It was a hell of a Christmas, Joel thought. Then he snorted derisively to himself. No, this was Christmas in hell itself — hell on earth caused by the attack.
Everyone knew that terrorists would someday try biological weapons of mass destruction. Bureaucrats fretted and fussed, and spent enormous sums of money studying the issue, but never putting any concrete actions or plans in place, so when the attack occurred, everything was paralyzed. The first victims confounded the doctors — they had brief pneumonia-like symptoms, and very high fevers that passed quickly. A few days later, though, the second part of the infection began — massive bloody pustules began to cover the body, followed quickly by a repeated high fever that ravaged what little strength the victim had left. The effect was akin to a hideous combination of smallpox and Ebola. Most people coughed blood from the internal hemorrhaging in their lungs as they lay dying, and the health-care workers stood by, trying to avoid contamination, and helpless to do anything. Over seventy percent of those infected died a gruesome death.
The second wave of illnesses ravaged the health care community itself, as the virus spread by both air and bodily fluids. Those charged with public safety were caught up in the second wave, too. Police station after police station, the infection spread, until most stations went into lockdown mode. Fire stations, with their EMTs, were likewise quickly affected. Panic set into the city as the national government took emergency measures to try to contain the outbreak. Only the fact that the city was small and relatively isolated kept the outbreak from becoming a national disaster, but the government had to drop a curtain around the city, isolating it from any transportation, whether rail, road, air, or sea. Armed soldiers in biological contamination suits, with shoot-to-kill orders, surrounded the city. Joel remembered that, before the news all went dark, a man had tried to flee in his sailboat. The Coast Guard mercilessly destroyed his boat, the man, and his family with machine-gun and mortar fire, to prevent the spread of the contagion. The government could take no chances.
Stores shut down, and were subsequently looted by the few who still ventured out. Phone service went out, and there were only pockets of buildings still with electricity; the blackout spread further and wider each day. The city was dying, with no services, no transportation, no authority, no food, and little water. If, and that was a big 'if', the Centers for Disease Control managed to find a vaccine or cure, by the time they got to the city, the people would have succumbed to starvation, dehydration, or the disease itself. Even the airdrops of supplies were of little help; people were terrified of meeting others, lest they contract the virus and die. It was a scene out of a science fiction movie, Joel thought, but he was living it. Hell on earth.
And at Christmas time, too. This year was shaping up to be one of the best Christmases, time spent with his wonderful girlfriend Diane and her family, time off from his job. They had been planning to go skiing, and Joel had a surprise for Diane — something that he knew would cement their relationship. Now, though, Joel didn't even know if his girlfriend still lived, let alone his own family on the other side of the city. Driving was no longer possible; without electricity, there was no gas, and the few stations which had electricity had long since run out of the precious liquid. Cycling was dangerous; as people became more desperate, they became more feral, willing to completely cast aside the thin veneer of civilization and savage another human for small items like a bicycle or even a single bottle of beer. To some, food was precious enough to kill for.
Joel stood for a moment, looking forlornly at the tree and the dark outline of the decorations. He'd been a medic while he was in the Army, and he knew better than most how desperate the situation really was. He lowered his gaze, closing his eyes, his head slowly shaking side to side, as he thought of what lay ahead. He couldn't see any way that there could be a "Merry Christmas" or a "Happy New Year". Not under these conditions. "If only there was something I could do," he muttered to himself, feeling helpless.
As he turned to walk away, a strange light, reflected from one of the few intact storefront windows, caught his eye. He stopped, alert, and slowly turned toward the source of the illumination. Joel's mouth dropped open in astonishment as he beheld a glow emitted from part of the nativity scene. As a moth drawn to a flame, Joel slowly walked toward the unearthly display. It wasn't the entire scene — it was the magi figures that seemed to be lit from within, glowing but not transparent. Joel shook his head in disbelief, and his eyes widened as he could have sworn that he saw the wise men shaking their heads as well. "I'm infected," Joel thought to himself, surprised at the calmness of such a discovery. "I'm getting the first fever and delusions." The box of rations dropped from his hands, and he began to back slowly away, his mouth agape at the shock of knowing that he had the fever, and that he was likely to die horribly within days.
The three figures reached up and tossed the elaborate turbans and headgear from their heads. Joel continued to stare at them as they stepped carefully from the manger scene, still bathed in the ethereal light. The trio wasn't anything like Joel imagined the magi to be. There were no colorful, flowing robes, no beards. The magi wore suits - quite formal suits, with bow ties. One, slightly more rotund than the others, was also a bit taller. He seemed to have a look of being perpetually puzzled about something. His round face sported a 5-o'clock shadow, and his hair was close-cropped. The second had a severely receding hairline, but the most notable feature was his longer curly hair. His eyes held an odd glaze, reflecting an inner uncertainty. The third was as unique as the first two. His hair was dark, straight, and in a bowl cut so his bangs hung above his eyebrows. His eyes were narrowed, whether in anger or frustration wasn't clear, but he seemed to be the most determined of the three.
"Hello," one sang, holding the note while the second added, slightly higher-pitched, "Hello!" The third chimed in his, "Hello." They all stopped singing, and then, in their normal voices, added, "Hello," all together.
Joel knew he was hallucinating. He was feverish, even if he didn't feel warm at the moment. There was no other way to explain why the three magi were glowing and looked like the Three Stooges.
"You're not hallucinating, dummy," Moe said. A scowl crossed his face, and he turned to the larger one, Curly, slapping him hard. "I thought you said this would work better than the last time."
"I told you we should have appeared as Charlie's Angels," Larry complained, earning a bop on the head from Moe.
"At least we're not cartoon ducks," Curly countered. For his efforts, he got his ear severely pulled, until he squealed, "Oww!"
"This has got to be a bad dream," Joel said to himself.
"Well, it's not," Moe replied sternly. "Look, we don't have a lot of time. Do you know how much energy it takes to appear like this?"
"It's a lot," Larry said with certainty, answering the question before Joel could even consider it. For his trouble, he earned a two-fingered poke in the eyes. "Ow!" he protested.
"I was talking," Moe reprimanded him sternly. "Now, to get down to business. We bring you gifts, O Chosen One," he said, trying to sound regal. He started to present his hands, and noticed they were empty. He angrily turned to Curly. "Where are the gifts?"
"I put 'em down. They were getting heavy," Curly answered in a whining voice.
Moe slapped him across his head with his hat. "Well, pick them up!" He angrily took a chest from Curly after the larger man picked up three small ornate chests. Larry took a second one. "Hey! I wanted to do that one this time!' Curly whined.
"You always get to do the second gift," Larry countered. "It's my turn!"
"Why you ...." Curly whined again.
"Knock it off, before I knock both your blocks off!" Moe turned back to Joel, who was standing, his face etched with total disbelief. "We bring you gifts, O Chosen One," he repeated, extending his small treasure toward Joel.
"What the hell is this?" Joel demanded. "Are you guys some kind of clowns? And is this some kind of gold, frankincense, and myrrh thing, too?"
"We're not clowns," Larry scowled.
"You two are acting like it," Moe reprimanded them sharply. He turned back to Joel, pasting a smile back on his face. "We have gifts to help with your wish."
"My ... wish?" Joel stammered. He shook his head. "I gotta be dreaming."
Larry leaned toward Curly. "This guy just doesn't get it, does he?"'
Moe scowled, then remembered and pasted on his phony smile. "You wished to help save Christmas. The gifts are special items to help you do that."
Joel frowned, but he reached out and took the chest from Moe. He started to open it, but Moe stopped him. "No, no, no! You have to wait until you're back in your apartment." He suddenly looked concerned. Their glow vanished. "Freeze," he hissed to his compatriots. The trio froze in place, in a pose most unbefitting wise men in a manger scene.
In the absolute stillness, Joel heard distant footsteps. He edged a little closer to the nativity, to blend into the shadows. Presently, a young man shuffled by, barely glancing around him and obviously in a hurry to get off the streets. Joel watched him go, and then slowly turned back.
The Stooges were back in place, frozen, but with Larry and Curly extending their small chests toward Joel. Certain that he was losing it, Joel took the three chests, having to tug to get the third chest from Curly's beefy hands. The tugging caused Curly to fall over — atop the cow. "Ow!" a soft voice called out. Joel shook his head in absolute disbelief, but then he stacked the chests on his box of MREs, hefted the box, and turned toward his street, and his apartment. He glanced over his shoulder once, but there was nothing except the shadowy figures of the nativity with one of the wise men sprawled awkwardly over livestock. Joel shook his head, glancing at the tiny chests for reassurance that he wasn't going mad. Nothing he'd seen in the last few minute made any sense at all.
**********
The chests sat on Joel's kitchen table, as did the still-unopened box of MREs. Joel was sitting at the table, sipping the last of his Scotch. The only illumination was a small candle flickering on a counter. He sighed as he gulped down the last of his liquor — he was out, and the stores were stripped cleaner than if locusts had been through. After that strange encounter, though, and the lingering fear that he was infected and had imagined the whole scene in a feverish delirium, he'd needed a drink.
Now that his Scotch was gone, Joel looked at the chests. Why had he taken the three props — which he _knew_ were dummy painted treasure chests — from the nativity? It may have been the dim light, but Joel was beginning to doubt that they were mere stage props. The gold bands reflected light like, well, real gold. And the jewels encrusted in the body and lid of the tiny boxes didn't look at all like cheap cut-glass or plastic decorations. After studying the boxes for a time, Joel's curiosity could wait no longer. He opened the nearest box, peering anxiously inside.
If the outside of the box was ornate, the inside was luxuriously plush. Set in the inside of the lid was a mirror, but it seemed a strangely translucent mirror. On a cushion in the bottom of the box was a very bright pin, appearing to be polished silver. As Joel picked up the pin, he felt a strange tingling through him, as if some power was emanating from the pin into his hand. He felt a shiver run down his spine. After shaking off his nervous feeling, Joel turned the pin, and immediately recognized it as a caduceus — two snakes spiraling up and out around a staff. It was the universal symbol of the medical profession.
Joel put the pin back in the box, and turned his attention to the second one. It was every bit like the first, down to a silver pin resting inside, but this time, the pin was a pair of winged feet — symbol of Mercury, the messenger of the gods. As Joel remembered, such a symbol represented speed. And like the first pin, this one, too, radiated power when Joel picked it up.
Nervously, he put the pin back, and then pulled the third chest in front of him. He opened it, expecting to discover yet another pin. Instead, to his amazement, the box contained a folded, very stiff piece of white fabric. He picked it up, and as it unfolded, it revealed a Red Cross embroidered on the hat. It took a moment for Joel to recognize it; it had been many years since nurses had worn the traditional little white hat, but he realized that it was an old-style nurse's hat. And, like the other items, this one radiated some kind of strange power.
"Hello," a voice sounded, startling Joel, making him drop the hat. He looked up, and saw an image forming in one of the mirrors. "Hello," a second voice called, slightly higher in pitch. "Hello," sang out the third voice. Just like earlier, the voices cut off, and then three individual voices said, "Hello." On the inside of each lid was an image of the 'magi' who'd given Joel that particular box.
"What the hell?" Joel asked.
"Now put on the gifts," Moe urged him.
"Yeah," Curly said in his whiny voice. "You have to be wearing them for this to work." Moe bopped him on the head, and again on the chin, making Curly's head bob down and then back up. "Ow!"
"I was explaining," Moe snapped.
"Why can't we explain?" Larry protested. As Moe poked his two fingers toward Larry's eyes, Larry held up his hand like a blade and blocked the attempt. "Ha!" he said triumphantly. He hadn't expected Moe to use his other hand to grasp Larry's, and then push Larry's own hand into his nose. "Ow!"
"Now, to answer the question — again," Moe continued, emphasizing with distaste the word 'again', "you are NOT delusional. These gifts are to help."
Joel shook his head in continued disbelief. "I know I didn't have _that much_ Scotch!"
"Listen up, wise guy!" Moe commanded. "This is how it works. Each of the artifacts has a special power. When you wear them, you get that power. The combination will let you help people who are sick."
"What?" Joel asked again, shaking his head in confusion.
"I told you we should have been the Kardashians," Larry grumbled. He earned slaps from both Curly and Moe for that statement; his hands flailed about trying to block the flurry of attacks from the other two.
"Okay, so I'm supposed to get some kind of powers from these ... things?" Joel asked slowly.
"Now you're getting it," Moe said, rolling his eyes with relief. "So put them on already."
Joel looked at the caduceus pin for a moment, before picking it up. "What does this do?" he asked.
"It gives you the power of healing anyone you touch," Curly said proudly.
Joel shrugged, and not knowing what else to do to amuse — or distract — himself, he pinned the caduceus onto his T-shirt. He winced as a powerful tingling wave coursed through his body, including a mild burning sensation on his chest beneath the pin. "What the hell ...?"
"It's just the power flowing into you," Curly said, trying to sound reassuring.
"But it felt like it burned me!"
"It couldn't have been _that_ bad," Larry said. "You didn't scream or yell."
"Now the other pin," Moe urged as he backhanded Larry for his comment.
Joel picked it up, and stared. "What does _this_ one do?"
Moe rolled his eyes. "Good grief! What do they teach these days? Mercury? Messenger of the gods? Moves faster than lightning?"
"It gives you the power to travel ... Ow!" Curly flinched when Moe smacked him.
"It gives you the power to travel very rapidly anywhere you want to go. In fact, it's almost instantaneous."
"You mean — like a Star Trek transporter?" Joel asked warily.
"That's it! We should have been Kirk, McCoy, and Spock!" Larry exclaimed. He ducked another flurry of slaps from the other two.
"Faster than that," Moe said. "Almost instantaneous."
Joel shrugged, and pinned the winged feet to the other side of his shirt. Again, he felt the tingling and the mild burning sensation. Hell, if he was going to die soon anyway, why not indulge this strange fantasy-delusion?
"Okay, now the hat," Larry said eagerly.
Joel picked it up off the table, where he'd dropped it. He looked at it. "Uh, no way in hell."
"But ..."
"I'd look stupid!" Joel said firmly. "And ... it's a _woman's_ hat!" He looked at it more closely, still holding it like it was a snake.
"To cure people, you have to sense where the sick people are, and sometimes, you need to be able to comfort and calm them. The hat gives you both of those powers."
Joel was shocked that he was actually considering putting the hat on. "No," he said again, but his voice wasn't as firm. He was thinking about his family, his girlfriend, their friends, and all the people he worked with. He knew that many of them would catch the virus if the government experts couldn't find a cure quickly.
"Don't worry. You only have those powers while you're wearing the hat," Larry added.
Joel sighed. "This is stupid," he muttered to himself. Maybe if he had another glass of Scotch, he wouldn't feel quite so hesitant. In fact, if he was good and drunk, he thought, it'd be okay.
"Just try it," Moe urged. "What can it hurt? Unless you're afraid ...," he taunted.
"Fine!" Joel snapped. Maybe he _had_ drunk enough Scotch. Glaring at the guys in the box lids, he unfolded the hat and placed it atop his head. "There," he said, just before a very powerful wave of tingling and falling rushed over his body. He felt odd, like he was being squeezed and stretched at the same time, and every nerve seemed to become numb. Joel slumped over, falling out of his chair onto the floor.
**********
"Hey, are you awake yet?" one of the voices slowly penetrated Joel's mind as consciousness began to return slowly.
"Huh?" he stammered. He slowly realized that he was on the hard floor. His body felt strange. He pried an eye open, and was confronted by a curtain of sandy-blonde hair. "What the fuck?" he said, recoiling at the softness and tone of the voice echoing in his ears. He reached up and swept the hair from his eyes — or at least, he started to. His eyes went wide with shock when he focused on the hand. It was small and delicate, not at all his rough manly hand.
Things were not making sense to Joel. Panic began to set in. He _knew_ he was experiencing a fever-induced hallucination. He twisted his torso and then pried his upper body off the floor. He felt something odd on his chest, a tugging weight, and his ribcage seemed a bit constrained, like he was wearing a too-small shirt.
When he finally looked down at his torso, a scream erupted from Joel's mouth — and the sound was very feminine in pitch and tone. He saw that he wasn't wearing a T-shirt any longer, or his jeans. Instead, he was wearing some type of dress with a jumper, or what he figured to be a dress. The jumper was plain white, tied tightly at the waist, over the top of a tight-fitting dress with pale blue and white stripes. Each sleeve ended in a white band with an embroidered red cross. And his chest was sticking out more than it _should_ have. At the same time, his hair fell out of his eyes, but he could see, in his peripheral vision, that his hair was _much_ longer.
"What the hell did you do to me?" he screamed, his brain trying to assemble facts into something that seemed reasonable. His voice was soft and mellifluous, and it almost sounded like there was an accent.
"We didn't do anything," Moe countered. "It's the power of the gift."
Joel bolted upright and dashed into the bathroom. Another scream echoed into the kitchen.
After a couple of minutes of screaming and swearing, Joel came into the kitchen. He _was_ wearing a dress — a very old-fashioned dress, with long sleeves and a red cross stitched to the chest. His waist was narrower, and he had modest breasts pushing out the front of the dress. His face was much finer; the six-day growth of beard was gone, replaced by delicate, smooth skin. His eyes seemed bigger — soft and brown and so warm. They possibly seemed larger because they were wide with shock at what Joel had seen in the mirror. His hair hung loose behind his head in a ponytail, except for one lock that dangled over his left shoulder, curled ends hanging just above Joel's breast. The only thing he could think was that he looked like an old Victorian English nurse. But that was impossible. There was only one explanation — he was imagining everything.
"Ah, you're back," Moe said from the lid of one of the chests. "We were starting to get worried."
Joel strode angrily to the table and sat down. "What the hell did you do to me?" he demanded, still flinching from the soft voice with the seductive British accent. He glared at the chest lids, and saw that Larry and Curly were ogling him, which made him suddenly quite embarrassed. He lifted his arm in front of his chest, even though he was already wearing a dress which covered his body in this embarrassing state.
Moe reached into the others' images and conked their heads together. "Will you wise guys knock it off? We've got a job to do."
"But ... I'm a girl!" Joel protested. For some reason, he felt like crying at his plight. He also felt like throwing something or screaming again. But at the same time, there was something dampening those emotions, reassuring him that everything was okay. He was caught in a maelstrom of emotion at what the hat had done to him.
"Oh, I might have forgotten to mention that there might be some ... side effects," Larry added.
"You call ... THIS ... a side effect?" Joel screamed at the images. "You turned me into a fucking girl, for God's sake!"
"Yes, and a very pretty one at that," Curly added. He barely ducked a punch at his nose.
"It's part of the power," Larry said.
"Did you forget anything _else_?" Moe asked sarcastically as he poked Larry in the eyes — again.
"Ow! No," Larry said. "I think I got it all." He scowled at Curly. "If I did forget anything, it's your fault anyway. You knew that I wanted to do the third box this time.
"Well, if this is the way things are," Joel said firmly, "then I don't want to play your little game." He reached up and tore the hat from his head, then stood expectantly waiting to change back. After a bit, during which his expression became increasingly desperate, he glared at the boxes. "Why am I not changing back?" he screamed at them. "Why am I still a ... a woman?"
Larry frowned. "Just a second," he said, frowning. "Let me check the manual."
"You didn't read the manual first?" Moe asked, slapping Larry on the side of the head.
"Oh, here we go," Larry said, looking down and not directly at Joel. "Changes induced by the artifacts are permanent, even if the artifact is removed."
"What?!?!" Joel demanded, simultaneously angry and in disbelief. "You mean I'm stuck like this? And you didn't tell me first?"
"Sorry," Larry said, before his image faded from the inside of his box, his face looking quite embarrassed by his oversight.
"Now what the fuck do I do?" Joel asked, still astounded by the sexy British accent ringing in his ears.
"You do the job you wished for," Moe said, as if the answer was obvious. "We'll be here if you need more advice or if you have more questions." With that, Curly and Moe both blinked out as well, leaving Joel alone in his apartment, staring uneasily at the now-blank inner lids of the chests, feeling all the strange sensations of being in a woman's body, wearing a nurse's uniform, and feeling some strange powers in him.
After a bit, still in shock, Joel started to get an uneasy sensation, a strange feeling that he should be doing something, even though he couldn't quite understand what. Somehow, the artifacts were supposed to enable him to help those afflicted by the virus, but he didn't knew how. As he thought of the sick, though, he felt very strong compassion for them, increasing until he felt like it was his duty to help them. It was highly confusing. Joel knew he should be more appalled at being a woman than he was, and in fact, in the back of his mind, he was near panic over the sudden and unexpected change. But something more important was imposing on his mind — the need to help those who were ill — and that thought was not letting him concentrate on the changes. It made no rational sense, but that compulsion to help was overpowering his sense of panic.
Slowly, recognition crept into Joel's conscious mind — a powerful sense of people suffering and ill. He could actually feel their presence, some nearby, and some further away, but all in need of medical help. He had to help them, regardless of his feelings about becoming suddenly a woman.
Joel wondered — how was he to use the gifts? He had been told of what they did, but he hadn’t been told _how_ they worked.
As Joel pondered, the sense of desperation from those that were ill was increasing, until it was quite overpowering. He tried to shut it out, but couldn't. He fled to the bathroom again, to stare into the mirror. His face was pretty, even with his mouth open in shock and his soft brown eyes wide with fear. His hair was long and silky, hanging down his back, but with a little bit draped across his shoulder to spill golden-brown locks down onto his left breast. The dress was very simple, and with the red crosses on the armbands to symbolize the wearer's role. Joel wanted to scream in horror at what he saw, but he couldn't. Something wouldn't let him. Even a simple act of anger or frustration seemed impossible. Tears trickled from Joel's eyes, rolling gently down his cheeks in the only visible sign of anguish that circumstances — or the strange powers — would permit.
Even that brief emotional outburst was stopped by the strange compulsion Joel felt toward the sick. As he gave up trying to mourn or protest his loss of masculinity, he succumbed to the feeling of compassion. He thought of the afflicted, and as he did so, he felt overwhelmed again by the pain and suffering of so many people, a torrent of agony and pain from all the ill people in range of his strange power. He collapsed to his knees, his hands clutching at the sink to keep from falling completely. He fought to push away the feelings, and slowly, he felt less overwhelmed, but he found his focus becoming riveted on one sick person in particular. He couldn't tell the details, but he knew that the person was critically ill — from the virus.
As his focus narrowed more and more, the compulsion to help increased with the focus, until Joel wanted to do nothing but help the sick person. He thought about what he could do — the caduceus pin was _supposed_ to give him the ability to heal the illness — if only he could get to the sick person. Somehow, he _had_ to get to the sick person to help them.
A tingling sensation instantly spread quickly through Joel's body, the kind of feeling that Joel remembered from Novocain at the dentist, until his entire body felt numb. At almost the same time, there was a tugging sensation as if his body was being pulled in every direction at once, but that sensation was dulled by the tingling. And then there was a loud popping sound audible only to Joel, accompanied by a flash of light.
When Joel's eyes readjusted, he saw that he was no longer in his apartment. He was in a bedroom which was lit by a single tiny candle. Joel didn't need to look to sense the patient lying in a bed next to him. His eyes quickly adjusted from the bright flash, and Joel saw that the patient was a little girl, probably not more than seven, and that she was in the final stages of the disease. Her lips and the pillow were spattered with blood, and as the girl coughed again, a spray of blood erupted from her mouth to add to the mess. Her face and neck had several open pustules, also oozing blood. There were other sores, all over her body, in the same condition — open and bleeding. Joel didn't have to touch her forehead to know that she probably had a hellish fever, too.
Even as his compassion for the girl grew, Joel felt despair swell inside him. He was now exposed to the viruses which had been in the girl's cough. He was as good as dead. Surprisingly, he still felt a need to help the girl, and as he thought about that act, his hand began to glow, even as he felt a tingling in his chest where the caduceus pin was fastened to him. With nothing to lose any longer, Joel reached out to the girl and caressed her forehead, wincing at the terrible fever the girl had. He felt power flowing through his hand, and he looked on, amazed, as the girl's ragged breathing eased. His eyes widened when he saw the pustules began to close, until they were gone and there were no scars in their place. He shook his head in disbelief — those who survived the virus _always_ had hideous scarring from the deep, bleeding pox. The girl's fever was considerably lessened, judging from Joel's hand on her forehead. The tingling in his chest and the glow of his hand faded.
Behind him, Joel heard the door open, followed by a gasp. "Who ... who are you?" the voice demanded. "Get away from her!"
Joel turned toward the voice, and saw an elderly woman. She looked weak. Joel could sense the illness in her, and he saw a small telltale pustule on the woman's arm. She was just entering the second, fatal, phase of the illness.
"Ed," the woman called sharply over her shoulder without taking her eyes off Joel, "get the shotgun!"
"There's no need for that," Joel said soothingly. He felt tingling again, this time focused in his scalp under the hat. "You're ill," he said, his voice oozing sympathy. "Let me help you." There was something in his voice and words, enhanced by the power of the nurse's hat that calmed the woman almost immediately. He remembered that Larry _had_ said that it would give him a way to soothe patients. It seemed to be working. Joel felt the power flowing into his hand again, and he reached cautiously for the woman's arm, to the open pustule.
"You ... you can't," the woman said, frightened. "You'll get it, too."
"I can help you," Joel said again, "just like I helped her." He touched the arm, and the woman's eyes widened as power flowed through Joel's hand. After a few seconds, the glow stopped, and Joel dropped his hand.
The woman stared at her arm, at the spot where the pustule had been forming. It was gone, just like the girl. Her mouth hung agape at what seemed to be a miracle.
The sound of the girl stirring caused the woman to snap her attention to the girl. She was lying, mostly peacefully, and rolling over like a little girl during normal sleep. Her breathing was regular, and she looked like she was peacefully dreaming. Apart from the bloody spattering on the bed linens, everything seemed normal.
"She's ... she's not ... coughing!" the woman said in awe. "And her sores ...."
"She's cured of the illness," Joel said, feeling satisfied, "just like you are." The fact that she had helped two people was incredibly gratifying. "Is she your daughter?"
The woman looked sad. "Granddaughter. Her parents ...." Her voice choked, and she didn't have to continue. Joel knew that the girl's parents were probably gone, and probably due to the disease.
The distinctive and unmistakable sound of a shotgun being pumped grabbed Joel's attention. He turned to the door from where the sound had come, and saw an elderly man pointing the gun at him.
The woman turned at the same time as Joel, and then she quickly pushed the barrel of the gun down. "No, Ed," she said quickly. "She's here to help." She pointed at the girl. "See? She cured Erin."
The man looked where the woman was pointing, and his jaw dropped at the spectacle.
"You're infected, too," Joel said with certainty. Though the man had no visible sores, she could _feel_ that he had caught the virus. "Let me help you, too." She reached toward the man, her hand glowing again. Though the man's eyes were wide with suspicion, he was calmed enough by her power that he let Joel put her glowing hand on his forehead. Once more she felt healing power flowing from her — briefly, this time. She figured, as the tingling faded, that the amount of power it took, and thus the length of the tingling, was related to how ill the person was.
"How ...?" the woman stammered. "How did you cure her? And us? Who are you?" She shook her head. "That ... dress ... isn't medical scrubs," she said as she seemed to be seeing Joel's dress for the first time.
Joel started to say something, to explain to these people, but he knew the story would be unbelievable. "I'm just a nurse who wants to help," he said. Even as he spoke, he sensed another sick person nearby. "I must go to help someone else. Happy Christmas." Joel felt the power building in him, the tingling sensation that meant he was going to teleport to another patient. The man and woman stared in shock as Joel simply vanished in a flash of light, as if she'd never been there. The only evidence that she'd visited were the lack of open sores on the girl and the woman, both of whom had been cured.
**********
Joel strode nervously through the streets. He'd run out of energy for teleporting, after visiting and curing over two dozen people. He still felt some power for curing, and for sensing people, but without his teleportation, there was nothing he could do. His only option was to walk nearly a mile back to his apartment — through dark and dangerous streets late in the evening. He'd been fortunate, in one sense, that the last place he'd teleported was as close as it was. He could have ended up several miles away from his apartment. It had been bad enough walking in the twilight a few hours earlier when he'd been male. Now, though, he felt small and vulnerable, a dainty woman with no muscles to help defend herself, walking through a dangerous, lawless city gripped by anarchy, late in the night. Joel knew he was in real danger.
About five blocks into his journey, Joel started feeling like he was being watched. He quickened his pace, but stopped short a few yards later. He could see the shadows detaching themselves from the buildings and moving to block his path. Joel turned, and saw the shadows turn to follow him, while more shadows emerged into the moonlit street. Joel turned again, and knew with a sickening feeling that he was surrounded. The shadows slowly closed in, making a circle around Joel. He glanced around, looking for an escape, but the ring of gang members left no gaps. Joel wished that he still had power to teleport, so he could escape this situation. Then again, if he had the power, he wouldn't have been there in the first place.
When the ring was about ten feet from Joel, one of the figures detached himself from the ring and strode confidently forward. The fear on Joel's face was genuine — he could be killed, beaten, or, he gulped in panic, raped. He glanced around again, hoping against hope that there was a way to escape, but there was none. He looked at the man approaching him.
The man was over six foot two, and built like a linebacker. It wasn't easy to tell, in the dim moonlight, but Joel guessed that he was African-American. What little Joel could read in his expression didn't give him any comfort.
The man pulled a knife and held it menacingly toward Joel's throat. "Are you really a nurse?" the man demanded.
Joel realized that the man was just a teenager, probably not older than seventeen or eighteen. He could detect something else through his magical senses — the boy was badly scarred from being one of the lucky few to survive the virus, which had left its telltale marks on him. "Yes," he answered nervously.
"Can ... can you help my girlfriend?" the boy asked, sounding uncertain, instead of the confident, angry gang leader he was trying to be.
Joel felt a little less frightened. "Yes," he said confidently. "If she has the sickness, I can help her." In truth, he was shaken — he'd run out of power for teleporting. What would happen to him if he _couldn't_ help the girl, if he'd run out of power for curing as well? He didn't know how much power he had, or how to recharge it — if it even could be recharged. If he couldn't help the girl — Joel didn't want to think of what the gang would do to him.
"Come on," the teenager said, roughly grabbing Joel's elbow. "She needs help bad." Joel walked with the teen, knowing that his gang was behind him, ready to pounce should he make a misstep.
The group entered the back of an older store which had been ransacked before it had been commandeered by the gang. The leader took Joel to a stairway, and tugged him uncomfortably up to the second floor. The leader still held his knife in one hand, while his grasp on Joel's elbow with the other hand was painful.
The smell of death and disease assaulted Joel's nose as they climbed the stair, indicating where he was going, even before the gang leader pushed him to a room. Inside, there was a small battery-powered lantern casting dim light; Joel knew without asking that the gang had pilfered batteries and food from the airdrops, possibly even assaulting other people to get the precious supplies.
Joel glanced nervously at the leader, whose face was impassive. He simply nodded toward the corner of the room, where someone was covered in a blanket atop a mattress which lay directly on the old wooden floor. The smell was horrific, and Joel cringed. He stepped uncertainly toward the mattress.
The girl lying on the mattress was sweating profusely, and had open sores on her face and neck. When she moved, coughing wracked her body, and she spat up what seemed to be great quantities of blood. She didn't look like she was conscious; she might have entered the final stages of the disease and become comatose. Joel looked back at the leader. He noticed that none of the other gang members had entered the room. They probably knew how bad the sickness was, and wanted to minimize their chance of exposure. The leader was looking at him, his eyes pleading for Joel to do something, even while he tried to show no outward emotion.
Joel knelt down on the edge of the bed, already driven by his strong sense of compassion for the girl, even though he was repulsed by the sight of her sores and the stench of her bodily wastes. At a certain point, even her boyfriend, the gang leader, wouldn't have tended to her so personally out of fear. He probably didn't realize that, having survived the illness, he was immune to further infections. All the gang leader knew was that his girlfriend was dying.
Joel felt for the power, and felt it surging into his hand. Slowly, tenderly, he put his hand on the girl's forehead. He almost flinched at how hot the girl was; her fever, he knew, was severe enough to cause brain damage if left unchecked. Joel felt the power being drained faster than he'd felt it before. He had no idea how much he had left, but he knew that this girl was taking it all. He brushed her cheek with his other hand as he focused on the girl, on healing her.
Joel was completely exhausted when the glow stopped. He let his hand slip wearily from the girl's now-cool forehead, and exhaled heavily, not knowing if the glow had stopped because the girl was cured, or if he'd simply run out of the healing power.
"Well?" the gang leader asked gruffly from the doorway.
Joel looked at him. "I think I got to her in time. I _hope_ I had enough power left to heal her." He turned and looked at the girl. "Her sores are gone, and she's breathing normally. Her fever is gone, too."
The leader tried to look from the doorway, but he was too far away to really see. "For Christ's sake," Joel said in a frustrated voice, "you've had the disease. You're immune now!" It sounded sexier than he meant it to; he couldn't control the contralto sound of his voice, or the British accent.
The leader thought about her words for a moment, and then strode — nervously — into the room, to the side of the bed. He winced at the powerful odor as he looked down. "She's ... she doesn't even have scars!" he said incredulously. "You healed Tonisha!"
Joel nodded heavily. "Could I please go home now?" he asked. "I am quite exhausted, and healing her took the last of my strength."
"How ... how did you do that?"
Joel shook his head. "I don't know," he admitted. "I received some ... unique ... gifts that give me the power to heal people."
"Thanks," the leader said, trying to appear stoic to his posse, but the teardrops in the corners of his eyes gave away his emotions. "I owe you one." He stuck out his hand. "I'm Derek."
"Jo ..." Joel stopped. He couldn't say Joel; who knows what kind of reaction he'd get from a gang of toughs. Nor could he probably tell the truth — that he'd been changed when he received the power. It was too fantastic and unbelievable a story. He wasn't sure he believed it himself. "Joanne," he said. "I go by Jo. I really must get home to rest," Joel said again.
"DJ, Keeshon," Derek barked out toward the door. "Help the lady get home." He saw their stares. "Make sure _nothing_ happens to her, got it?" He turned to Jo. "If you need anything, you know where we hang."
"Thanks," Joel said softly. "I'm glad I could help." He turned to leave, but found himself turning back. "Happy Christmas," he said, realizing for the first time that he'd been saying that to all of the people he'd helped, without even realizing that he was using the British phrase instead of the American "Merry Christmas." With the two gang members flanking her, she walked back into the street. They were silent as they walked; both were at least a head taller than Joel, and stocky. DJ had flashed a gun, and then grinned, revealing a gold-capped tooth with an embedded jewel. He wanted to let Joel know that he was plenty capable of protecting her.
**********
"Thanks, guys," Joel said from his doorway. "Happy Christmas." The two gang members simply nodded and turned from the door, which Joel shut and locked behind them. He sank wearily into a chair, and only then did he start to shake as he contemplated the enormity of his evening. It hadn't been bad enough to be changed into a girl, but then to be cast, without his consent, into rooms and homes with critically ill people, all of whom had the disease and were dying. He'd used all his power to teleport, and he didn't know how much power he had left to heal, only that healing the girl Tonisha had left him physically exhausted. Joel hoped — prayed actually, that the powers gave him immunity, or he was dead. It was a certainty, given what he'd done — placing his hands on open, bleeding sores, and being repeatedly in close proximity to bloody coughing — that he had been exposed to the virus more than enough to be certain of catching the illness. Early in the outbreak, before it became a crisis, the medical community had discovered that it spread both by airborne particles and through body fluids. He'd worn no protective gear. If he wasn't immune, he was doomed.
"Hello," sang out one box, followed by another, "Hello," and the third. Joel just glared at the boxes as Moe announced, "I see you're home, honey."
"How was your day?" Curly asked.
Joel didn't rise from his chair. "You know bloody well how my evening was," he snapped. "God, I could use a Scotch!"
"Sorry," Larry apologized. "I didn't bring any today."
"No, you just gave me those pins and this stupid fucking hat that turned me into 'super nurse' — and you forgot to tell me that it'd turn me into a fucking girl!"
"Well, I don't think you're stupid, and whatever you do on your personal time isn't our concern, as long as you nurse people to health during the day," Curly quipped with a grin. Moe slapped him for his rude, suggestive comment.
"Yeah? Well, you also forgot to tell me that the powers would wear off! I'm fucking exhausted from walking home in these bloody awful shoes!" Joel complained.
"You didn't charge the powers between your stops," Moe said, as if it was obvious and he shouldn't have had to say anything.
"Oh, another minor detail you 'forgot' to tell me?" Joel demanded angrily. "What _else_ haven't you told me? Am I going to start acting like a girl? Am I going to start chasing guys? What else is there to all this shit?"
"Why didn't you wise guys tell her how to recharge the gifts?" Moe demanded, reaching across and bonking Larry's and Curly's heads together. "You knuckleheads!"
Moe was looking down, as was Curly; Curly's lips were moving as he read. "Oh, yeah," he said in a whiney voice. "Recharge. Caffeine is required to recharge this power. Coffee is an excellent source of caffeine, and is highly recommended." He looked up. "Coffee will work."
"As long as it's not decaffeinated," Larry added.
"I said that!" Curly complained, bopping Larry under the chin, who in turn smacked Curly on the head.
"How am I supposed to get coffee? There's no heat, no power, no running water. How can I make coffee?"
"Don't your rations have coffee?" Moe asked. "Sheesh, do I have to think of everything around here?"
Joel sighed, shaking his head. "I suppose that'll do. But what about the other powers?" After his evening, he'd realized that he couldn't fight the compulsion to cure sick people. He was too tired to try doing that again. But now that the power had been worn down, he found it hard to feel sick people, and the burning compulsion to go to them was greatly diminished.
Larry looked down. "To recharge the hat, you need Lima beans!" he read, looking up with a smile.
Joel's mouth dropped open. "Lima beans? Where the bloody hell am I going to find Lima beans? And if I did find them, why would I want to eat them?"
Larry grinned. "Just kidding." He got poked in his eyes by Moe for that stunt. "Ow! Okay, okay. Honey."
"Honey?"
"Yes, dear?" Curly asked, snickering. Larry and Moe both smacked him.
"I mean honey, the food," Larry replied.
"That's it? Honey?"
"Food of the gods, healing elixir. You know that honey has some remarkable antibiotic capabilities; in ancient times, honey was smeared onto wounds to prevent infection and promote ...." Larry ducked as Moe smacked him.
"This isn't a biology lesson," Moe growled. "Knock off with the stupid lectures." He rolled his eyes. "I knew it was a mistake to let you see Wikipedia!" he grumbled to himself.
"What about the healing?"
"Spirits. Beer, Scotch, vodka. Anything with alcohol."
Joel rolled his eyes. "Great. Now not only am I stuck as a nurse, but I'm going to be sloshed going around trying to do my job." He shook his head. "Where the hell am I going to find alcohol? That was the first thing people took."
"Yeah, I could see how that could be tough." Moe looked down again. "Ah, it also says, 'or candy, preferably chocolate.'"
"Candy?"
"Preferably chocolate. Just none of that sugarless stuff — it's the sugar that recharges the power."
"By the way," Larry added, "Joanne is a lovely name!"
"Oh, shut up!" Joel snarled. He rose and walked to the table, slamming the lids shut. He could have sworn he heard three muffled, 'Ow's" coming from inside the boxes. Joel was so exhausted that as he sat on the sofa to rest, he fell asleep.
**********
Joel stood in the bathroom, staring into the mirror. His face was so alien, and he knew he needed to clean up — and use the bathroom. He dreaded the thought of going doing so, because it would mean that he had to confront his changed lower anatomy. So far, he had not had to 'inspect' his body. Now, he would have to.
Sighing, Joel reached behind himself and untied the jumper, slipping it off, and then he worked to unbutton the dress. The buttons being in the back made such an action difficult at best. Perhaps, he thought, if he had more practice, it would have been easier. But that thought immediately horrified him — he didn't want to think of getting more practice, because that would mean that he remained a woman long enough to get that practice. He wanted to change back as quickly as possible.
Drawing a deep breath and exhaling slowly, Joel slipped the dress over his shoulders, and eased it down around his hips, letting it drop on the floor. Now he was confronted with undergarments. The corset was unexpected; it cinched in his waist and pushed his breasts upward, making them appear larger. Joel unlaced the corset and took it off. For some reason, he felt relieved that beneath the corset, his waist wasn't large, and his breasts were perky and not sagging. One thing that surprised Joel was the discovery that the emblems from the two pins, the caduceus and the winged feet, were now tattooed — or burned — into his flesh above his breasts. That explained the burning sensation when he'd put the pins on. He wondered for a moment — did that mean those powers were permanently affixed to this body? And if that was the case, how much permanent power did the hat give him?
As soon as that foreign thought entered his head, he pushed it away. He couldn't think of himself as a woman. He _had_ to find a way to reverse the magic, to return to being Joel. Joel knew, from his girlfriend, what lacy panties could look like. But they were nothing at all like what he was wearing. They seemed to be long shorts, high at the waist and extending down to mid-thigh. Knowing that the inevitable couldn't be delayed, Joel sipped the garment off his waist.
He thought that the sight of a smooth crotch, devoid of male accoutrements, would cause him shock and despair. Instead, he seemed resigned. It _had_ to be a side effect of the magic. He knew that he should be quite angry or depressed. Instead, it was simply a fact that he didn't want to waste time dealing with. He sat on the toilet, wondering for a moment how his new anatomy worked, but when he thought of peeing, urine was released from his bladder. He winced at how it was wetting the insides of his thighs, making a mess. It was so unlike going as a male. But at present, it couldn't be helped. Not until the Stooges decided to let him change back.
Joel poured some water into the toilet bowl until it swirled and flushed the waste. It was a waste of precious water, but he knew that he had to keep his toilet clean to minimize the chances of disease. He was reusing as much water as he could for flushing the toilet — water from washing a few dishes, water from sponge baths, and even water from snow that he'd gathered from outside and let melt. Anything to conserve the uncontaminated, bottled water he reserved for drinking.
Following his toilet duties, Joel took a rag, and with a bottle of water, began to give himself a sponge bath. It was difficult; the water was cold, and without heat, the apartment was barely above freezing, giving him great incentive to bathe as rapidly as possible. He avoided spending much time washing his breasts, but appropriately cleaned his crotch. Once he finished, he very quickly toweled himself dry. He _did_ feel better; a little hygiene really helped his morale. Of course, being a woman was a huge negative, but at least he was a clean one.
Joel picked up some shorts and gym sweats from his room and pulled them on. They weren't exactly a good fit, but they weren't women's clothes, either. Feeling a bit refreshed, he went back to the kitchen and heated up an MRE to get something to eat. While the flameless heater was still active, he heated some water and mixed a cup of coffee, too. He first took a sip of coffee, reveling in the feeling of energy that coursed through his body, making him tingle from head to toe. He took another few sips, and found his energy level constantly increasing. Now he needed honey, and sugar or alcohol. He started looking through what little he had for supplies. It wasn't much — Joel hadn't been one for cooking. Still, he found a sugar bowl he used for his morning cereal. Sighing heavily, he took a spoonful of sugar and, not knowing what else to do, ate it. The sensation was almost sickeningly sweet, enough that Joel coughed, spewing some of the sugar around his kitchen. He grabbed a bottle of water and took a big swig, washing down the rest of the sugar from his mouth.
As with the coffee, he felt a sense of energy flowing into him. Relishing the feeling for a moment, he took another spoonful — smaller this time — and ate it, washing it down immediately with more water. A couple more spoonfuls and Joel felt satisfied — as if the power was telling him that he'd topped it off and didn't need any more. He'd have to look for some candy — eating sugar was quite unappealing to him. Coffee — that was easy. Joel liked coffee, although he usually drank decaf. Now, though, he'd have to put up with caffeine jitters to keep his powers recharged. That left honey.
Fortunately for Joel, his girlfriend Diane was a frequent enough guest that Joel had stocked a small bottle of honey, since Diane loved honey toast for breakfast. He had some honey — but the small bottle was nearly empty. Joel winced at having to consume the honey without anything to go with it. The sugar was bad enough. Still, he knew he needed it, so he forced himself to get enough to feel recharged. As he put the bottle away, he realized that he was going to have to find another source of honey. What he had would only last one, or maybe two, recharges.
Joel opened the chests, expecting the so-called magi to appear. They didn't disappoint him.
"Hello," "Hello." "Hello." They all stopped the singing. "Hello."
Joel shook his head. "That gets old."
"No it doesn't," Moe said angrily. "It's our signature introduction."
"So go away and leave me alone, then," Joel protested. "After you change me back!"
"No can do. It's permanent."
Joel sighed, but then he remembered something. "With these healing powers, am I immune to the disease? If I'm not, then I'm toast. I've been quite thoroughly exposed."
"You're immune," Moe said with certainty. "What would be the point otherwise — give a person curative powers only to have them die of the disease they're trying to cure?"
"That'd be stupid," Curly said.
"Like you," Moe said as he bopped Curly in the chin. "Shut up. I'm talking."
Even though Joel wasn't wearing the hat, he could still faintly feel a compulsion to help sick people. He sat at the table in his sweats, sipping coffee and thinking. He knew the compulsion would grow, until he had to go. But maybe — he thought about the sick people, and going to the sickest of them. He closed his eyes and focused on going to help someone sick. But nothing happened.
"They all go together," Moe said from the chest lid. "You can't find the sick people without the hat, and without knowing exactly where they are, you can't teleport there."
Joel sighed. "I was afraid you were going to say that." He picked up the hat from where he'd dropped it the previous night, and after looking at it for a bit, unfolded it and put it on his head. Immediately, he felt a tingling again, and as he looked down to see, his sweat clothes changed into the nurse's uniform. "Oh, shit," he complained. "I didn't want to wear that uniform again."
"Why not?" Larry asked, his eyes wide as he looked at Joel. "You look very attractive in it."
"Would you two quit ogling her and get your minds focused?" Moe shouted as he twisted both other men's noses.
Joel took one last sip of coffee; as soon as he'd put on the nurse's hat, he felt the sick people's plights pressing in on him again. He pressed them away, except for the worst of them, and prepared to start curing people. He knew better than to try to fight the compulsion; Moe had told him that he couldn't, and he'd experienced some of that the previous night.
As Joel pushed away the feelings of sick people, he came across one that felt very familiar. He immediately focused, and was startled when he realized that it was Diane, his girlfriend. She was ill, but not yet seriously so. She would be soon, though. Joel focused, and saw the flash of light and felt the tingling.
Joel was suddenly in his girlfriend Diane's apartment. Diane was on the sofa, resting, covered with a few blankets. As Joel sat down on the edge of the couch, Diane stirred. As soon as her eyes opened, she gasped in shock. "Who are you? How did you get in?" she asked, frightened at the sudden presence of a woman in an old-style nurse's uniform.
"You're sick, Diane," Joel said soothingly.
"How do you know my name?" Diane's suspicions were heightened by the fact that this strange nurse seemed to know her name. "Who are you?"
"It's a very long story — which I promise to tell you as soon as I cure you." Joel felt the power surging in her hand, and she reached toward Diane's forehead.
Diane, seeing the strange golden glow on Joel's hand, cowered , pressing herself back into the sofa, trying to escape Joel's touch.
"Don't worry," Joel said reassuringly. "It won't hurt, but it will cure you of the virus in your body. I promise I won't hurt you." His words, with the special soothing power, calmed Diane. She was still wide-eyed as she watched Joel put his glowing hand on her forehead. She nearly fainted as the power coursed into her, overwhelming the virus and bringing her relief. In a moment, the glow stopped.
Diane sat up slowly, testing herself. "I ... I don't feel feverish," she said, awestruck. "And my muscles don't ache."
"I told you it wouldn't hurt," Joel said with a smile.
"Okay," Diane said, glaring at the strange nurse. "Who are you?"
Joel smiled sadly. "You're not going to believe me, but I have a quite fantastic story to tell you," he said.
Over the next half hour, Joel explained the gifts, and the transformation, while Diane sat skeptically listening to his story. It wasn't until Joel revealed some of the more intimate details of their relationship that she began to believe his unbelievable tale.
"So ... you've become some kind of 'super nurse'?" she asked.
Joel nodded. "And I'm a woman, too."
"I can see that. And you sound British, too. Is it ... is it permanent?" Diane asked hesitantly.
"I don't know. I think so, based on what the strange magi said." Joel was starting to feel overwhelmed by the sick again. "Do you have any honey? And any candy or sweets?"
Diane frowned. "Why?"
"That's what recharges my powers. Oh, some coffee, too, if you don't have decaf."
Diane frowned. "You know I only drink decaf." She stared at Joel. "God, I can't believe that's you!" she said, shaking her head. "If it were me, I'd be really freaked out."
Joel leaned back on the sofa. "Inside, I am. But there's something about the powers that won't let me vent my feelings. It's like ... these powers are forcing me to be comfortable like this. It's weird."
"And that British accent, with that kind of husky voice," Diane observed with a strange expression on her face, "damn, but you sound sexy."
Joel shook his head at that. He knew what he sounded like, and inwardly, he hated it. He decided to change the subject. "I think you should move in with me — at least until the trouble is over. It's getting too dangerous for you to be living on your own." He shuddered involuntarily as he remembered his encounter with the gang the previous night.
"What about you? Especially since you look like ... that?" Diane demanded.
Joel smiled, but it wasn't really a genuine smile. "I've got a few ... tricks," he said, recalling how the teleportation could whisk him out of trouble — provided he kept himself charged with caffeine, and how the nurse's hat gave him the power to calm people. "But to keep them powered up, I need to make sure I have a good supply of caffeine, honey, and sweets."
"I guess it's a good idea to move — at least for now." Diane didn't seem convinced. There was something in her voice that sounded more uneasy than Joel expected.
"Get a few things together, and I'll come by later to help you move."
"It's a long way — especially when it gets dark outside."
"If I can move stuff the same way I move to help people," Joel said with a grim smile, "then I can move a lot of your things pretty quickly. I'm not sure if I could move you the same way, though." He stood. "In the meantime, my ... compulsion ... is getting too strong to ignore."
"Compulsion?" Diane asked, wide-eyed.
"I ... have to go help other sick people," Joel said sadly. "It's one of the costs of having these powers. I can't stop myself from using them. It's like ... some kind of hidden force." He got a far-off look in his eyes as he focused on the pain and suffering of others nearby, and as soon as he focused on the sickest person, he disappeared in a flash of light, leaving Diane staring, open-mouthed in shock at what she'd seen.
**********
"How are you going to keep getting your ... supplies?" Diane asked Joel as they sat in the candle-lit room, huddled together under a blanket for warmth. Joel had used a tremendous amount of energy teleporting Diane's stuff to his apartment, and then teleporting Diane herself. That was on top of all the teleporting he'd done all day, going to the sick and curing them. Joel was nearly exhausted. He'd taken off the nurse's hat and uniform, and was in another pair of his sweats. Diane had watched him change with curiosity, noting several times that Joel was a cute girl. Since he wasn't wearing the hat, and his powers were drained, he found her comment annoying. How could Diane possibly think that Joel was cute?
"I don't know," Joel answered slowly. "I don't know where I can ...." He stopped suddenly as an idea dawned. "Maybe I _do_ know where I can get some help." He stood abruptly, and started to get that focused look in his eyes.
"Where are you going?" Diane asked, fearful for him. She'd seen him acting strangely all day — coming back, tired, and recharging his powers with coffee, honey, and chocolate candy. It seemed to energize him in a very strange way.
"I know a few flats are abandoned," Joel said. "And then there's a ... group ... that said they'd help me after I cured one of them."
"But they'll be locked." Diane scowled. "And what's with the British vernacular on top of the accent?"
Joel blushed. "I can't help it, really. It's something that the magic, or whatever it was, did to me. Do you think I like this?" He shook his head. "When this is done, I'll probably be stuck saying lorry instead of lorry, or bloody lift, or loo, or bonnet and boot." He wrinkled his nose, realizing what he'd automatically said. "Bloody hell, I can't even say the damned word without concentrating." He furrowed his brow. "It's a truck, not a bloody, fucking lorry!" he said, but with very noticeable effort.
Diane suppressed a giggle; she suspected that Joel had incredible inner angst at the change, but something was preventing him from expressing — or even showing — how upset he was. And add to that his automatic use of British terms — it was comical, in a way, even if the side-effects of the gifts were a little cruel to Joel.
Joel nodded as he walked into the bathroom, where his nurse's uniform hung. He pulled off his sweats, and bundled himself into the awkward Victorian-era underwear. Diane proved helpful in lacing his corset and buttoning his dress. "Why the dress?" she asked.
Joel shrugged. "The ... gifts ... work as a set. If I'm not wearing the frock and hat, I can't use the other powers. And if I put on the hat to get its powers, it'll change my clothing into the frock and underwear." Joel sighed. "Damn! It's a damned _dress_," he said with annoyance. "Not a bloody frock!"
"Your clothes?"
"You saw two frocks hanging in the bathroom, right?" Joel shook his head. He paused, but gave up trying to correct his automatic British vernacular. "This morning, there was only one. As soon as I put on the hat, though, the power transformed a pair of sweats into this ... uniform." He shook his head. "If I keep that up, I won't have any normal clothes left!"
Diane smiled. "In case you hadn't noticed, you don't have anything appropriate for your current body right now, either."
"I've got some bloody sweats," Joel snapped. "It's not like I want some fancy wear to go out dancing or such!"
Diane walked back to the kitchen area with Joel. "What's your plan?"
"I'll go to abandoned apartments, where I can teleport just a couple of feet — from one side of a locked door to the other. Then I can see if there are any supplies." He started to the door, but stopped and turned. "You know where the pistol is, right? And you know how to use it?"
Diane nodded. She'd seen enough mayhem since the panic and lockdown had started that she knew extreme measures might be called for. She was mentally ready to defend herself.
"Okay." Joel slipped out of the apartment, making sure the door locked itself behind him.
Twenty minutes later, Diane heard the key in the door. She reached under the sofa cushion and drew Joel's pistol — just in case. She needn't have worried — it was Joel, his arms laden with supplies. He set them on the table, pushing aside the three magical chests to do so. He had some instant coffee, plenty of candy, but little honey, and nothing important like candles. He decided not to mention to Diane what he'd seen. One of the apartments hadn't been abandoned; the occupants were still there, and the stench of death and rotting flesh had overpowered Joel, causing him to vomit violently. He hadn't stayed to check for supplies there.
"I need more honey," Joel announced as he inventoried his supplies. "And we really need candles. Or ... batteries." He thought of the gang, and their stash of purloined batteries. Derek had promised to help him if he needed it. Joel decided he needed to take that offer.
He concentrated on the second floor room of the old building, where Tonisha had been near death. Strangely, he found feelings of illness near there, and as he focused more, he realized that they were early-stage illness, in the same building. The other members of the gang, perhaps? Joel decided to teleport to one of them.
**********
Derek and Keeshon turned, startled by the flash of light and the popping sound. Their weapons were already being drawn and they were scrambling to their feet.
"Good evening, Derek," Joel said in his sweet, seductive British voice. "I'm terribly sorry to startle you by popping in so."
It was almost a look of relief on Derek's and Keeshon's faces. "You kind of surprised us, Jo," Derek said as he sheathed his knife.
"I need to make a barter," Joel said before Derek could say anything more. He saw the puzzled look on Derek's face. "A trade."
"What kind of trade?" Derek asked suspiciously.
Joel smiled, trying to radiate calmness. "I need certain foods to be able to continue healing people, and I need some candles or batteries" he explained. "From what I sense, you've got a lot of your ... posse ... that are in the early stages of the disease, and need to be cured. It seems a fair trade."
Keeshon leaned over and whispered something in Derek's ear. After listening, Derek turned his attention back to Joel. "How do you know some of the guys are sick?"
"It's part of my powers. I can sense when people are infected."
Derek turned to Keeshon. "Get the guys." As Keeshon left, Derek gestured for Joel to sit. "Kind of risky for a pretty lady to be out this late at night," Derek observed.
Joel laughed. "You saw how I can travel about. As long as I keep that power charged, I can get out of any trouble."
Derek grinned wickedly. "I can see where that would be handy." He frowned. "How'd you get these ... powers? And what are you, some kind of super-hero?"
"It's a long, complicated, and frankly, quite unbelievable story," Joel said. He wanted to omit the fact that he'd been a guy just over a day ago. "But yes, I suppose I am a 'super nurse' now."
Slowly, the other gang members filed into the room, among them a very healthy-looking Tonisha and a few other girls. None looked ill, but Joel could sense the early-stage infection in most of them. "I can tell that most of you have been exposed and infected," Joel announced, drawing gasps of surprise. She looked at one smaller gang member. "You're between stage 1 and stage 2. You've had a high fever a couple of days ago, right?" It wasn't a question at all.
The guy glanced nervously at Derek, who nodded slightly. He turned back to Joel. "So?"
"That's a symptom of an early-stage infection, what's called stage 1. You're infected. If I don't help you, you will progress to Stage 2, and your chances of not being dead in a few days are quite slim." Joel looked around the room, at the number of gang members, and took stock of what remained of his curing power. He wouldn't have enough power to cure them all. He looked at Derek. "I need honey to make the healing power work," he explained. "Would you be so kind as to see if you can find me a jar of honey? Even a few sachets from a restaurant will do. Of course, the more I get, the better. There are a great many people who need to be cured, and if I run out of power ...." Joel shook his head.
"Why should we help them other mother-fuckers?" one of the gang demanded angrily.
Joel pushed his soothing power. "Do you like living without water, or food, or electricity? Do you like sleeping near your own waste?" He shook his head. "Pretty soon, other diseases are going to spread from the unsanitary conditions. This city will be wiped out, and you with it, before the authorities can develop a vaccine and return to restore basic services. Is that what you want?"
DJ glanced at Derek, who nodded. DJ turned, tapped the objecting gang member on the arm. "Come on, Marquise," he said gruffly. The two left, while Derek directed the others to line up.
Joel felt the power surging in him, and his hand began to glow. Some of the gang members gasped at the sight, frightened by what looked like supernatural powers. Joel pushed more soothing power, and despite the nervous looks he was getting, he moved to the first gang member. "It'll be all right," Joel said soothingly. "This won't hurt a bit." He touched the wide-eyed, frightened teen on the forehead, and felt power flowing into him. In a few seconds his hand stopped glowing.
"That's it?" the teen asked, astonished. "That's all there is? No needles? No crap like that?"
"That's it," Joel said reassuringly. After that simple demonstration, the others lined up eagerly, and Joel began administering his healing touch to one after another, until finally, he couldn't feel any more power. He shook his head. "I'm completely out of healing power," he said, sounding tired. "It's all gone right now. I need to recharge."
"With honey?" DJ asked, having entered the room silently while Joel was distracted healing the others. With a huge grin on his face, he held up a large jar of honey. "Like this?"
Joel felt so grateful that he forgot himself for a moment and surrendered to his new instincts, racing to DJ and wrapping him in a big, thankful bear hug. "That's exactly what I need," he said. "Thank you." Suddenly realizing what he'd done, he backed off, and saw the giant man looking down at Joel, his expression somewhere between a grin and an embarrassed smile. "We got two cases of this from ..."
Joel shook his head, feeling his ponytail bobbing. "I don't think I really want to know where it came from, do I?"
DJ grinned. "Probably not."
The other kid stepped forward, holding a large box. "Don't I get a hug, too?" he asked with a smile.
"Oh, what the hell?" Joel asked, before wrapping his arms around the boy, until the boy was thoroughly embarrassed. For some strange reason, Joel found it a bit of fun to embarrass the teenager, even though he knew he shouldn't. After ending the hug, he took one of the jars of honey and opened it, then began to drink the sweet, syrupy, amber liquid, while the guys watched in fascination. He felt the power flowing back into him, but he winced at the sickeningly sweet taste. "Have you got some water — to wash the taste down?" He made a face. "It's too sweet, really, but I must have it."
One of the girls, who'd already been cured, handed Joel a bottle of water, which he gratefully sipped. Joel handed the honey back to DJ, and then set the water bottle on the floor. "Okay, let's attend to the rest of you lot, then."
**********
DJ and the other teenager walked with Joel through the dark streets. Both boys had their arms full, and Joel carried a smaller box. Derek had given him a couple of cases of rations, some coffee, the honey, and some candles and batteries. Joel knew that DJ was thinking about something; he seemed much quieter than he had the previous evening.
"What's on your mind?" Joel finally asked.
DJ stopped abruptly. "I don't get it," he said, sounding confused. "Why you do this for us? You know who we are. You know what we do. Nobody else would help us. Why do you?"
Joel thought for only a brief moment. "Because I'm a nurse. My job is to help people, not to judge them," he replied almost automatically, stunning even himself. "It doesn't matter to me who you are, or what you do, or what you look like. To me, you're all people who are ill, people who need my help." She felt, rather than saw, that DJ was thinking about what she said. "Now, it's late, and it's getting cold. My ... roommate ... is probably getting worried about me."
"Your boyfriend?" DJ asked as they resumed walking.
"No, she's a ... good friend. Nothing more."
"Oh. 'Cause if you're into girls, that's no problem with me," DJ added. "But I think it'd be a shame if someone as pretty as you was into girls."
Joel felt his cheeks blushing by the compliment. "No. Even if I was, she isn't," he said. DJ's words were food for thought. What was the relationship now between Diane and Joel? If Joel was stuck in this body, as this sexy nurse, were they just friends now — after they'd been lovers for so long? Joel sadly realized that their special relationship would end if he couldn’t change back. He was speaking the truth to DJ; even if he wanted to continue with Diane, she wasn't into girls. He knew that she was ready to marry Joel, not a girl who'd called herself Jo to distract from attention. When he thought about it honestly and rationally, Joel knew that he and Diane were going to have to have a long talk about what this now meant. It was going to be the breakup talk, he realized sadly.
Joel snapped out of his thoughts when he heard a noise down a street they were passing. He saw that DJ had heard it too; he was scanning the surroundings, alert to whatever had caused the sound, and ready for a dangerous situation. It made Joel feel a tiny bit safer; still, he would have preferred to have his 9mm pistol in his hand — if this body could even fire the handgun any more. The possibility of danger heightened Joel's sense of being smaller and less able to defend himself.
DJ and the other kid, Marquise, didn't see anything else, but for the rest of the walk to the apartment, the two were definitely on alert. "Is this ... someone else's turf?" Joel asked softly as they walked into the apartment building. He turned on a flashlight that Derek had given him.
"Bloody hell," Joel snapped as they passed through the lobby. "My flat is on the fourth floor, and the lifts are out."
"Flat? Lifts?"
Joel shook his head. "Sorry. When I gained these powers, it seems I also gained an accent, and I rather automatically use British terms rather than the American terms. It's hard to _not_ use them. Flat is what you call an apartment, and you call a lift an elevator."
"No problem, Jo," Marquise said with a smile. "We're in pretty good shape. You have to be to run in our 'hood."
"Well, I do really appreciate your help. I don't know how to thank you enough."
Marquise grinned. "I could think of something." He glanced at DJ, almost laughing, but his expression froze. DJ was giving him a most unpleasant look. "I was just joking," Marquise said quickly to excuse his comment.
"Derek said we are supposed to protect Jo, not make comments about her," DJ scowled.
Moments later, they stopped in front of the door to Joel's apartment. Joel put his burden down, and then began to unlock the door. He froze. "Diane, it's me. Don't be alarmed, okay? I have friends with me, too." She opened the door.
As she'd suspected, Diane had the pistol in hand, pointing it at the door. She looked quite frightened. "Who are they?" she demanded, her pistol pointed directly at DJ.
"Friends," Joel said again. "I helped cure their leader's girlfriend, and then the rest of the group, so they offered me help." She turned to DJ. "You can set them anywhere. It's kind of a mess right now."
"Where isn't it a mess?" DJ grinned. He set his case of MREs on the table, and then looked at the three small ornate chests. "Are these some kind of family thing?" he asked, curious.
"You could say they were passed down to me," Joel said with a slight smile. "They're quite special."
After Marquise had set down his burden, DJ excused the two of them. "We gotta get back. It's not exactly safe out there."
"I really appreciate the help. And the supplies."
DJ hung his head in embarrassment. "It wasn't nothing. Especially after you helped us not have the sickness. Like Derek said, if you need anything, Jo, just ask."
"Thanks." Joel watched DJ and Marquise walk into the hallway, and he shut and locked the door.
Diane helped Joel get some of the supplies put away so the table wouldn't be so crowded. "Jo? What's with that?"
Joel blushed. "Last night, when I bumped into them, I had to give them a name." He looked down, his cheeks flushing red. "I told them my name was Joanne, or Jo," he muttered softly. After a moment of silence, he looked up sharply, his eyes narrow and angry. "I couldn't really tell them my name, could I? They probably would have killed me!"
"I think it's kind of a cute name," Diane said. Her eyes had a curious expression, partly sad and partly something unknown. "Are we ... finished as a couple?" she asked nervously.
Joel closed his eyes and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. "Yeah," he said, opening his eyes. "If I can't change back, we're probably through." He turned away, his eyes suddenly leaking tears. "Dammit, Diane, I didn't want any of this! I didn't ask for any of this! I just wanted a nice Christmas vacation, so I could ...," his voice lowered, "propose to you." Joel's body started shaking as he began to openly cry — something he hadn't done since before his teenage years.
Diane put her hand to her mouth, shocked at what Joel had just said. That admission caught her totally by surprise; she hadn't even suspected that Joel would have wanted to propose. But now? Things were messed up. Not knowing what else to do, Diane pulled Joel into a tight embrace, letting Joel cry on her shoulder.
**********
Joel heard a bang outside his apartment, a loud, thunderous sound, followed by three more, and then after a short gap, a fifth. He was on his feet before the second shot had ended, his hand reaching automatically under his pillow for his pistol. He crept to the bedroom door, glancing around nervously. The only illumination in the room was faint moonlight coming through the sliding glass door that opened onto a small patio balcony. After many days without electricity, though, Joel, like everyone else, was adjusting. He could make out easily that Diane was sitting upright on the sofa, a blanket clutched around her.
"What do we do?" Diane asked nervously.
"I don't know," Joel answered, the gun held pointing toward the door. "Wait a bit?" For ten anxious minutes, the two waited nervously. Finally Joel could take no more uncertainty. "I'm going to look out in the hall to see what happened."
"It sounded like the shots came from the hall," Diane said, worry in her voice.
"Yeah." Joel tried to look through the peephole, but the inside hallway of the apartment was pitch black. He handed the gun to Diane, and took the flashlight he'd gotten. Cautiously, being as silent as possible, he unlocked the deadbolt, the security latch, and finally, the main lock. Ready to slam the door shut again, he eased it open a crack, shining the light down the hallway. The problem was that, because of the way the door was hinged, Joel could only see in one direction unless he stuck his head out the door. Slowly, he did just that, holding the flashlight way above his head and ducking low.
In the middle of the hallway lay a large person, not moving. Ignoring the possibility of still-present danger, Joel rushed out to the person. He gasped in horror when he saw that it was DJ, lying in a pool of blood. The big man moaned in pain; at least, Joel thought with relief, he was still alive.
With Diane's help, they dragged the big man into Joel's apartment, and then locked the door. His sense of compassion becoming strong again, Joel looked down at DJ. "DJ," he said urgently, shaking the man's shoulders, "can you hear me? Are you awake?"
The big man groaned at being shaken. He opened his eyes, trying to focus on Joel, but failed. "When we left, we saw ... someone following you ... into the building," DJ panted. "Figured they were going to rob or rape you. I ... shot ...." His voice faded as he lost the struggle to hold onto consciousness.
Joel looked up at Diane. "We've got to help him!"
"Will your ... power ... help him?"
"I ... I don't know," Joel admitted. "I only used it to cure the disease." He reached to the table, and took the nurse's hat. Taking a deep breath, he put it on his head, and immediately felt the power surge into him.
"Holy crap!" Diane said as she watched Joel's clothing transform.
"Oh, bloody hell!" Joel sighed. "Another outfit shot." He leaned over the big man, and summoned all his healing power. For several minutes, his hand glowed, and power was flowing into DJ, until Joel's hand faded and he nearly fell over from exhaustion. "Honey," he ordered Diane.
Diane was shocked. She'd seen the teleportation power before, but never the healing power. Joel had told her how many people he could cure with one 'charge'. Joel had just emptied all of his power into DJ, and the big man's breathing was still ragged, if slightly steadier. Diane handed Joel a bottle of honey, which he drank ravenously, his sense of urgency overwhelming his revulsion at the excessively sweet liquid. As soon as he felt the power fully recharged, he handed the bottle back to Diane and once more summoned the healing power. Again, he drained himself, but still, DJ wasn't much improved.
"Is the bullet still in him?" Diane asked hesitantly. "That might be messing things up."
Joel shook his head. "I ... I don't know." He closed his eyes and focused. "Yeah," he said, sighing and shaking his head. "And it is interfering with the healing." He looked up at Diane. "We have to get it out."
"We don't know how!" Diane protested. "Neither of us are trained, we don't have any alcohol to sterilize anything! We can't!"
"We have to try," Joel said with determination. "I can sense where the bullet is. If we work together, we can do this."
"Okay," Diane said reluctantly. One thing she knew was that when Joel set his mind to something, it was easier to go along than to object.
"There's a pair of needle-nose pliers in the bottom drawer, by the dishwasher," Joel answered. "It's the best I can do." Diane retrieved the tool, grimacing as she thought of probing around inside a man's belly with such a crude instrument.
"Okay, I'll hold the light with one hand, so you can see. I'll use my powers to help guide you, so you can get the bullet. Okay?"
Diane nodded, gulping. She was a sales associate, not a surgeon. "Okay."
For the next ten agonizing minutes, Joel tried to hold a light for Diane, while Diane probed inside DJ's belly. During that time, Joel was sending the healing power into DJ; they'd had to stop twice to let Joel recharge his power.
Finally, Diane pulled the bullet out. "Got it. Give him everything you've got now."
Two more full charges of honey to recharge Joel's power, and DJ's wound was neatly healed. His breathing was regular again.
Joel sat back, and nearly fell over from exhaustion. "Bloody hell, that was hard," he said softly. He took another drink of honey, but it didn't help his general fatigue.
Diane used some bottled water to clean up her bloody hands; while she was drying her hands, DJ started to stir. "What ...?" he stammered as he tried, and failed, to sit up.
"You got shot," Joel said wearily.
DJ nodded. "Yeah. Couple of guys ... followed you. I figured they was up to no good. I followed 'em back, and then shot 'em, but they got me, too. "
Diane looked at DJ and Joel. "Now what?"
Joel nodded glumly. "Now, I go get Derek and some help to take care of DJ." He stood, and after focusing a bit, disappeared with a flash and a soft pop.
**********
Joel heard a sound in the hallway as he heated water with the MRE heater. He glanced out the peephole, and saw two guys standing by his apartment door, in a stance like they were guarding the apartment. Joel smiled to himself. Derek had been incredibly surprised — and grateful — that Joel had saved his right-hand man after the shooting. DJ was still on the sofa, resting, which meant that Diane had had to share a bed with Joel for the rest of the evening. He had a foggy recollection that Diane had cuddled up close behind him, with her arm around him, to keep warm during the night. Waking up sharing a bed with Diane, while he was still stuck as a girl, was very strange. He figured he must have just been dreaming about snuggling with her.
Joel was grateful for sunrise and the need to get up and out of bed. He was still very fatigued from the previous day's events, but he felt very good about himself.
Joel heard Diane rising. He wasn't sure what he was going to say. He wanted to cuddle with her, to feel close and warm, but at the same time, he knew things were different, and he'd just scare her. He wanted, at the very least, to keep her as a friend.
"Morning," Diane said as she stumbled into the kitchen. She took a cup of coffee and sat down at the table. "Interesting evening."
"You acquitted yourself well for having to operate with a pair of pliers," Joel countered with a smile.
"We need to talk more, don't we?" Diane asked with certainty.
"Yes, but I have to run to the loo first," Joel said. He hated sounding British all the time. The idioms were getting downright annoying, even if Diane did think they were cute.
As he stood in the bathroom, illuminated by a flickering candle, Joel looked at himself in the mirror. Damn, but he looked so soft and feminine. There wasn't a trace of his old face to be seen, nor of his muscles. Whenever he dressed or undressed, he was reminded that his six-pack abs were now a flat, womanly stomach that most girls would envy. And his breasts? No-one would ever mistake them for muscular pecs. Joel was realizing — slowly but certainly — that he was no longer Joel, but was becoming, in his mind, Jo, to match his body. He swore at the mirror, wanting to shatter the reflection of what he now was, and what he was condemned to be — forever, if the Stooges were to be believed. Joel sat down on the seat and began to cry, finally able to vent his bottled-up emotions about his change, and hating himself at the same time because he was crying like a little girl.
Fifteen minutes or so later, Joel came out of the bathroom. His eyes were puffy and red, and he seemed to have a very sad expression.
"You've been crying," Diane said, half accusingly, half sympathetically.
"No shit!" Joel swore. "Wouldn't you?" He shook his head. "They said the change was permanent, just like the tattoos of the pins."
"Who said?"
"The magi in the chests," Joel explained, earning a stare of disbelief from Diane. "I told you about the gifts yesterday. The magi appear in the chests to tell me. Only, they're like the Three Stooges instead of wise men."
Diane frowned. "You didn't tell me that part."
Joel sighed. She was right; Joel hadn't told her everything. He didn't think that Diane would have believed about the Stooges. "They appear in the lids of the chests, just like they did in the nativity scene." Joel sat down at the table and opened the three chests to show Diane.
"Hello." "Hello." "Hello." Then the familiar joint, "Hello."
"You guys need to explain to Diane about what you did to me," Joel said to the boxes.
"Your girlfriend?" Curly said appreciatively? "She's a looker!"
"Keep your eyes in their sockets," Moe growled, slapping Curly back and forth across his face.
"Yeah," Larry added. He earned a nose twist from Moe. "Ow!"
"Knock it off!" Moe complained. "I saw how you were looking at her."
"See?" Joel said, turning toward Diane. "See?"
Diane looked at the chests. All she saw were hazy mirrors in the insides of the lids. "Uh, no," she said nervously. She was suddenly uncertain about Joel's sanity. Or her own. She knew she'd been sick. Was she now delusional, and everything from the past day was just a weird hallucination?
"She thinks you're nuts," Moe warned Joel.
"Can't she see you guys?"
"Why would she? She wasn't chosen," Larry reported as if it were obvious.
"Besides, she's cute when she's confused like that." Curly ducked the slap, but was caught by the follow-up upward chin bonk. "Ow!"
Joel sighed aloud. "Now what am I supposed to do? You guys and your stupid gifts cost me my girlfriend, and everything else about my life!"
"You wanted to help," Larry countered.
"Besides," Curly said with a grin, "looking at you now compared to a couple of days ago, you look much better! Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!"
"Why you, wise guy!" Moe snarled.
"You're not going to let me change back, are you?" Joel asked with certainty, interrupting the smack that Moe was about to deliver to Curly.
"Like I said before, no returns, no exchanges. Sorry, kiddo," Larry said, "but it's permanent."
"You'll get used to it," Moe assured him.
"Used to what? Being a woman? Having boobs? And I suppose I'll have a period, too? And I'm stuck with these stupid powers?" He shook his head. "I don't _want_ to get used to it! I want my life back!"
"Boy," Curly muttered. "The nerve of some people. You give them a priceless gift, and they want more!"
"I had one question — all those people I cured — are they immune now?"
"You didn't learn anything in high-school biology, did you?' Curly said, shaking his head.
"Of course they're immune now," Moe interjected. "Otherwise, it'd all be a waste of time, wouldn't it? You cure them and they get sick again?"
"Okay," Joel said, resignation in his voice. "I guess I better get busy for the day." He glanced back at the lids. "Can you guys do something to help me adjust — so I don't feel so awkward?"
"Sorry," Larry said, "but we can't do that, either."
"Besides, it's more fun watching you! It's like a comedy show," Curly said with a grin. Moe grabbed both ears and twisted. "Ow, ow, ow!" Curly whined.
Slowly, sighing, Joel shut the lids. "They said you can't see them," he said to Diane. He saw the wary look she was giving him. "I'm not nuts," he added quickly, "and neither are you. This is really happening."
"It's ... magic. And magic isn't real."
Joel shook his head. "No it isn't, but it's really happening. So magic _must_ be real." He sighed again. "And I suppose that means that I better start going by Jo, not Joel, so I get used to it faster."
Diane looked at him, and saw the agony in his eyes. He'd just admitted that he would never get back a core part of his identity. He'd lost all his masculinity, and now had the foreign (to him) world of being a woman, of dealing with things feminine and, until now, alien. He looked like he was going to cry again. She scooted her chair closer to Joel and wrapped her arms around him. "It'll be okay, Jo," she said softly. "It'll all be okay."
**********
Jo appeared in a room, where a young man lay in a hospital bed. She was startled by the bright lights; the facility still had power from its backup generator, but the fuel wouldn't last forever. After three days of healing people in the darkness or candle-light, finding a patient in a brightly-lit room was a stark contrast, and a little unfamiliar to Jo.
She'd made the decision, heartbreaking as it was, to go by Jo, to give in to her female persona — at least for now. Diane's presence had highlighted what she had become, and it was becoming more and more difficult for Joel to reconcile, in his mind, the difference between his mind and memories, and his physical form. With the strange compulsions the 'gifts' had given him, even those memories and thoughts were becoming a muddled mess, making it harder and harder for her to act and think of herself as anything _but_ Jo.
She turned to the bed, to a teenager lying with oxygen tubes to his nose. All his visible skin was pocked with the sores. He was in a desperate way, Jo knew. Softly, wordlessly, she went to the bedside, and leaning over him, activated her healing power and touched him. Slowly, she felt the fever receding beneath her hand, and the sores quit oozing blood and then began to close.
"Who are you?" a stern voice demanded from behind her. "What are you doing here? This room is in strict quarantine!"
Jo turned to see a very stern-faced nurse standing in the doorway, her face partially obscured by a mask, and her hands in nitrile gloves. "I'm just here to help," Jo explained softly. "See? He's almost healed from the sickness."
The older nurse's features — those visible, at least — clouded. "Security!" she called over her shoulder. "Step away from that bed. You're going to have to go into quarantine, because you've been exposed."
Jo smiled sadly. "Please let me help the other patients. And you, too. You and several of the staff have been exposed to the virus."
A security officer pushed past the nurse, a taser drawn. "Don't move," he barked.
Jo just smiled sadly at the two. "I'll be back," she said, "when you're more ... amenable to my help." With that, she vanished in a flash of light and a soft pop, leaving the nurse and guard standing, shocked at the nature of her sudden departure.
Jo shook her head sadly. The nurse wouldn't listen to reason. In that one hospital, one of the few still with power, the few who remained were trying desperately to care for hundreds of sick people, and slowly, the staff was succumbing to the extremely contagious virus. If only she could have stayed. She sighed. Their obstinacy was just going to make her job harder.
Jo took time to take a thermos from a satchel at her side, and sipped some coffee. Diane had brewed it extra-strong; the taste was quite bitter, even with massive amounts of cream, but it recharged Jo quickly. As an added benefit, Diane had convinced Jo to start taking sugar in her coffee, to recharge two of her powers at once. Feeling the energy peaking again, she put away the thermos and took out a small bottle. She squeezed some honey directly into her mouth, and despite the frown from the overly-sweet liquid, she felt her healing power refreshed. Done with her recharge, she put the bottle away, and then began to focus, to find the nearest person she could help.
**********
Jo popped into the city square, where the previous day's airdrop still had some unscavenged supplies. Two youths were standing, hands in the air, while a policeman held his gun toward them. Jo could feel the illness in the police officer.
"What seems to be the problem, officer?" she asked innocently as she strode confidently toward him.
"These ... thieves ... were taking all the supplies," the cop said. His stance was unsteady, and the gun wavered and wobbled in his hands. "I caught them."
"Officer, I think you're sick," Jo said, trying to sound calm and sympathetic. She could see a few small pustules on his neck. In another day, he'd be unable to stand, let alone hold his gun.
"I can do my job," the officer protested. "Stay back. Don't interfere with me."
"Officer," Jo continued, pushing all of her sympathy power toward the man, "you're sick. Let me help you." Slowly, she advanced toward him, speaking reassuringly the entire way, until she was close enough to touch the man. She knew, from experience, that power flowed best into the forehead, but she also knew that the officer would panic if she tried to touch his head. She gingerly touched his arm, and felt the warm glow of her power rushing into the cop.
"Who are you?" the cop asked when she released his arm.
"I'm just someone trying to help," Jo answered. From the corner of her eye, she saw the two youths — Marquise and one of the other members of Derek's gang, moving uneasily away.
"Hold it right there," the policeman demanded, his voice stronger, "or I'll shoot."
"Marquise, Jamal," Joe called, "please stop moving so you don't get shot. It really is difficult to heal someone with a bullet wound," she added sarcastically.
"You know them?" the officer asked, stunned.
"They've been ... helping me," Jo admitted.
"They're a gang of thieves and drug dealers," the cop scowled, suddenly suspicious of Jo as well.
"Right now, everyone is a thief," Jo observed calmly. "There's no law or order. It's anarchy." She shook her head sadly. "You're the only officer I've seen in over two weeks."
"I know this gang," the cop continued solemnly. "If you knew half of the stuff they did, you wouldn't be trying to stand up for them."
"Officer, perhaps they've been less than honorable in the past. But they've been of tremendous help to me in my mission to help people with the sickness — like you. At this point, there's very little right or wrong. Everyone, including you, is trying to simply survive. Are they any different for that?" She was pushing out her calming power again.
Slowly, the cop's determination faltered. "But," he began, halting before he could voice the thought.
"What's happened to your station?" Jo asked. "Have they been hit as hard as other stations?"
"They're on lockdown," the cop reported. "They won't let anyone in or out. I think — they're infected." He looked down, shaking his head. "Most of them are probably dead by now."
"Then we must go there and help any who survive," Jo insisted. "And with no delay. If they are truly that ill, then every minute will count."
**********
Jo sighed as she sank into the chair in her apartment. "Damn, but that was a long day."
"You say that every day," Diane commented. "At least you get out."
"Unless the guys are around, I'd rather you not go out alone. It's too dangerous."
"But not for you?" Diane asked acidly. She was frustrated by feeling cooped up. Despite her frustration though, she realized that Jo cared very much about her safety. It was something.
"I can get away from trouble in a moment, remember?" Jo asked. From Diane's reaction, it was the wrong thing to have said. "Anyway, I think I'm making progress."
"Oh?"
"I don't sense as many people with the virus as when I started." She sighed. "And since I cured three police stations, there's a little order slowly returning to the city." She closed her eyes to rest, but had to open them again when her mind replayed the images from inside the police and fire stations, and the nursing home. Death, decay, plague. It was as if the apocalypse had descended and touched the buildings. Jo knew that she'd never be the same, not after seeing what she'd seen. But she also knew that she'd cling to life more securely, from having seen how fragile it was.
"It's been, what, three weeks? Since before Thanksgiving?"
"And four days that I've been Jo," Jo added. She shook her head, sighing sadly. "God, but I can barely think of myself as Joel anymore. It's like ... faint memories that don't seem real." She wiped at the corner of her eye, and then turned to stare at Diane. "You know the worst part? I've forgotten how to be upset at all of this! Rationally, I know I should be angry, or sad, or something, but ... there's nothing. It's like those emotions are gone, and I've emotionally become Jo." The tear turned into two, and then four, and then the dam burst and Jo began to weep uncontrollably. "I don't want this!" she wailed. "I didn't want any of this!"
Diane sat down beside Jo and held her close. She had no idea of what Jo was going through, only that Joel had lost his entire life, his identity, his core being, and had become this ... super-nurse.
"I want to be angry. I want to be upset. I want to miss being Joel — but I can't!"
Diane knew that working with the sick was taking an emotional toll on Jo as well. Sometimes, she came back to the apartment in a cheery mood, happily recounting the people she'd helped. But other times, she seemed very withdrawn and unwilling to talk. Those times, her eyes had a haunted look to them, like she'd stared Death in the face and lost. Diane couldn't begin to imagine what Jo had seen in some of the places she'd gone. The first time, Jo had talked about it — the police station, a gateway to the world of the undead, where she'd found only six living officers out of the thirty who normally staffed the building, and those six were near death themselves. Jo had described, crying and shaking as she did so, the sights and smells of death in every corridor, in every room of the police station. She saw that the police captain had barricaded the outside doors once he knew that his officers were infected, to keep people out, so the police wouldn't spread the disease even further. He'd sacrificed his entire station — or most of it — in a vain attempt to protect the city.
Diane stood, pulled Jo to her feet, and guided her to the sofa. She sat beside her, wrapping the two of them in a blanket, and wrapped her arm around Jo to reassure her.
**********
Jo was anxious to get on her rounds for the day. She'd awakened on the sofa, under a blanket, curled up with Diane. The previous day had been hell, and at the end of the day, she finally been able to vent some emotion about having been changed into a woman. She knew that, deep inside, despite the fact that it could never be, she still loved Diane — more than just as a friend. But she also knew that Diane was straight, and there was no way that such a love could ever work.
As she put a thermos of coffee into her bag, she wondered if her emotional release had been the type of catharsis that made her let go of being Joel, and accepting Jo. She'd certainly had strange, erotic dreams the night before. In her dreams, she was happily being kissed, and having her breasts fondled, and she wanted more, so much more. The strange thing about her dreams, though, was that she'd been with another woman. Did that mean that she was a lesbian? That thought was less frightful than being a hetero woman and being attracted to men. She _was_ thinking like a woman now, as she'd feared.
Jo glanced once more at Diane, sleeping peacefully. They'd have to venture out in the afternoon to get some more MREs, if any were left at the drop site. But first ....
Jo popped into an apartment on the north side of the city. The family was huddled in the living room, trying to keep warm, and all were infected. They were startled by Jo's sudden appearance; she put on her best smile and pushed her calming power to them. "I'm here to help," she said pleasantly. "I know you have the disease, so I came to cure you all." After using her power, she decided to walk to the next infection, very close in the apartment complex, to save her power.
Jo walked out the door, relishing, for a brief moment, the sunshine on her face. Since the outbreak, everyone had lived indoors, and she missed sunny days. Even in the chilly December air, the feel of warmth on her skin was luxurious. She strode around a corner, humming happily, and suddenly froze.
Before her stood two men in biological isolation suits, looking like aliens in their protective gear. They gawked at her, just as surprised by her appearance as she had been by theirs.
"What are you doing?" one of the men demanded harshly. "This is a quarantined area."
"Yes, I know," Jo replied lightly. "I'm helping people with the virus." She tried to sidestep the two to continue her errands.
The men moved to block her. "We'll have to place you in quarantine," the other man said. "You've been exposed."
Jo shook her head sadly. These men didn't understand. "In that case, then, you probably should quarantine yourself as well. Your suit must have a fault, because you've been exposed to the virus and it is already in your bloodstream," she reported nonchalantly.
The man looked down, and his eyes, half-hidden by the suit, widened in terror when he saw a tear. "I've been exposed?" he cried out. His partner also looked at the damaged suit.
"Please let me cure you, before it becomes too difficult," Jo said to the men, pushing her power to calm them.
"There _is_ no cure!" the man with the torn suit replied, his voice starting to echo his terror.
"Yes, I can help you, like I've helped many, many others. But you'll have to trust me." She smiled warmly again, radiating her calming power. "Since you've already been exposed, you can take off that silly hood. It won't do any more for you, you know. And I do need to touch you to get the power into you."
The man with the torn suit nodded slowly. To his partner's shock, he unzipped his hood and pulled it back, exposing his head to the open air.
"Bob! Stop!" the colleague cried. He knew he should push this strange woman away from his partner,
"Don't worry," Jo said, pushing her calmness again. "I promise this won't hurt." She pushed power into her hand, and it started to glow softly. Calmly, slowly, she raised her hand to the man's forehead. In moments, the glow faded. "There, see? That didn't hurt, did it?" She dropped her hand.
"What _are_ you, lady?" the partner demanded, his eyes wide. "What did you do?"
"I just cured him of the virus," Jo replied simply.
"But ... there is no cure. Not once it's reached the infectious stage."
"Then it's a good thing you ran into me, isn't it?" Jo asked with an enigmatic smile. "Besides, if there's no cure, what are you doing inside the quarantined zone?" Jo asked.
The two men exchanged glances. "We've started mass vaccinations," Bob explained.
Jo sighed with relief. "Oh, good. My job is done, then. You'll take over treating all the people who are ill, right?"
The men exchanged another glance. "The vaccine will prevent the infection, not treat it once a person is infected."
Jo's face fell. "I knew it was too much to hope for." She sighed and shook her head. "Well, then, I must be off to help those who are beyond your vaccine." She started to turn away, but paused and glanced over her shoulder. "Happy Christmas," she added with a smile, before disappearing with a flash of light, leaving two extremely stunned CDC men staring at where she'd been.
**********
"There you are!" a man called out.
Jo glanced up at the intruding voice. She was working in a condo, going door-to-door to cure people so she wouldn’t have to use up her teleportation power. "May I help you?"
"You're the lady we bumped into two days ago, right?" He trotted to her. "I've been looking all over for you."
Jo noticed that the man wasn't wearing a biohazard suit. She frowned, but then recognized his face. "Oh, yes," she said with a smile. "You're the gentleman who was infected through the torn suit, right? You're from the CDC. Bob, isn't it?"
Bob smiled that she remembered him. "I was quarantined for a couple of days while they tested my blood. Do you know, I have the protein markers from antibodies to the virus, but there's no trace of active virus?"
Jo closed her eyes and shook her head for a moment. "I told you that you were cured," she said with a sad smile. "Why is it that bureaucrats are the hardest to convince?"
"My superiors certainly didn't believe the story Ed and I told," Bob said with a grin. "But they can't explain my antibodies and lack of virus, either. How did you do it? I mean the glowing hand, appearing and disappearing, and getting rid of an extremely lethal virus? It's almost ... like magic."
Jo smiled. "I was given some special ... gifts." She saw his look of disbelief. "It's a long, and rather strange story."
"But ..."
"And please do tell your supervisors that it's most disquieting to have a peacekeeping forces who act like an occupying military force. It is quite un-American, and quite disturbing. I mean, really! Having to always have one's papers proving identity and vaccination? Forced detention and quarantine of those who object or who don't have the proper papers? Arrest without charges, detention without access to a solicitor? Restricted travel without proper authorization? Really, sir, the bureaucrats and politicians are treating the city as if everyone here was the enemy. I'd go so far as to compare it with Nazi Germany."
Bob turned red at the comments. He wanted to argue, but he knew that this strange lady was right. The city _was_ under occupation, as if they were the enemy. The true enemies were the virus, and some long-gone or long-dead terrorist. Leaving the city? That made sense. They had to prevent the spread of the virus, but then again, a nation-wide mass vaccination campaign was well underway. It was as if the national government had decided to take over with significant force as either a political over-reaction, or as a demonstration of its power so the powers-that-be could preen in front of cameras a show, with news footage, that the government was in control and had stopped a deadly bio-terrorist act. The lady knew it.
Now, if you will excuse me, there are," she paused, closing her eyes for a moment while she focused, "seven people yet in this building who are still ill. Good day, sir."
"Wait," Bob called out as Jo turned down a hallway. She paused mid-stride and looked back at him. "Who are you?"
Jo's smile broadened. "That really doesn't matter, now, does it? As long as the people are cured of their illnesses." She turned and, whistling an old English tune that had been stuck in her head ever since the change, she strode down the hall.
**********
"Is it over?" Diane asked as she rubbed Jo's very sore shoulders. For the first time in nearly a month, the building had power. Slowly, very slowly, city services were being restored and order was returning, but the Federal government presence was still oppressively strong. The politicians were still milking the crisis to appear that they were actually useful.
Jo sighed, enjoying the backrub. She was tired, but not nearly as fatigued as she'd been the first four or five days of her work, and Diane was very skilled and attentive with her massages. "I think so," she said. "I couldn't detect any active infections this evening, except in the quarantine hospital." She shook her head sadly. "And God knows they won't let me in _that_ place!"
All active cases of the illness were being quarantined in one of the larger hospitals, and there was a very serious security presence in and around the building. Even with her teleporting power, Jo couldn't get near the infected patients. A lot of people were going to die, all because of some power-hungry bureaucracy. Even talking to Bob hadn't helped. She'd been tempted to just go in to help them, but everyone had heard the rumors that the security detail had shoot-to-kill orders to prevent anyone entering or leaving that building without special clearance. Despite those rumors, Jo had tried — and discovered for herself that the rumors had more than a grain of truth.
"Nine days," Jo said suddenly.
"What?"
"Nine days until Christmas," Jo repeated. Her voice sounded far off, like she was lost in thought. "It looks like it'll be a happy Christmas for most people after all." She sounded melancholy, though. It was supposed to be the Christmas when Joel proposed to and got engaged to Diane. Now, though, that was impossible.
Diane rose suddenly and went to the kitchen. A few moments later, she came back with two glasses, filled with red liquid. "DJ stopped by today while you were out," Diane announced as she handed one glass to Jo and sat down again.
"Oh?"
"It's a Christmas present from Derek — a bottle of wine. Since it looks like the outbreak is over, I thought it would be nice to celebrate."
Jo laughed. "It figures that he'd have some stashed away." She raised her glass to Diane. "To the end of the siege, and to a Happy Christmas after all."
Diane clinked her glass against Jo's. "Amen to that."
After a second glass of wine, Jo was feeling quite relaxed. She'd started out exhausted, and then added some spirits. Her smaller body couldn't handle as much drink as Joel's could, and she'd been 'on the wagon' for over a month because of the conditions in the city. As the two sat, Jo started looking at Diane, remembering how things had been. She saw Diane looking at her with a curious expression on her face. Impulsively, Jo leaned forward and kissed Diane, just like Joel had done a few weeks ago. For a moment, there still seemed to be that special chemistry in the kiss, and Diane was reciprocating the affection, but then Diane broke off abruptly and turned away.
Jo was startled by her own actions, and Diane's reaction. "I'm sorry," Jo apologized quickly. "I ... it just happened."
Diane kept her gaze fixed across the room, away from Jo. "Yeah. I know," she said awkwardly.
"I was just remembering how it used to be, how we used to ...."
"Stop, please," Diane said. She brushed away a tear. "It's not like that anymore."
Jo dropped her gaze, nodding sadly. "I know. It's just ... I know that, deep down, I still love you, even though I know it can't work anymore."
"Jo," Diane said pleadingly, "don't." She rose and walked to the kitchen, still not looking at Jo. "I suppose, now that it's safe again, I should move back to my apartment."
"I suppose," Jo said softly. "But I wish you wouldn't."
"Jo, please," Diane begged her. "Don't make this harder than it is." She wiped her eyes and cheeks again. "If I don't go now, I may never be able to leave," she said to herself very softly.
Jo sat in silence, not knowing what else to say, while Diane stood at the table, distracting herself by staring at the ornate chests so she wouldn't have to look at Jo. Finally, Diane turned to Jo. "Do you ... do you really want to ... try? A relationship, I mean?" she asked hesitantly.
Jo's heart nearly stopped. "But ... you're not ...." She shook her head. "Are you?"
Diane sighed. "I'm not sure. Maybe. When I was in college, I ...." She looked down. "I had a pretty long-term relationship with a girl."
"Oh."
Diane shook her head. "I'm so confused. I love Joel — for who he is. For how fun he is, and how he makes me feel special." She sighed. "But you're still inside, aren't you? No matter what the package looks like, all those things I loved about Joel are still in you, aren't they? And your package — is really ... sexy," she added very softly.
"Then what we shared ... physically ...," Jo said, "was that all ...?"
"No," Diane answered quickly. "It was very special, because you always treated me so specially, and were always thoughtful so I felt like I was the center of the universe." She looked down. "I don't know if it was the sex, or the way that, afterward, you were so cuddly and tender. You'd lie awake with me, cuddling, whispering in my ear, just being tender. I think ... it was the latter."
"Oh," Jo said, surprised and disappointed that Diane hadn't found their sex better. It should have been a huge blow to Joel's ego, but there wasn't much left of that.
"Now, you're so ... beautiful, and your voice, with that accent — it's ... irresistible. It makes me feel adventurous, like when I was with Traci all those years ago."
"I don't understand."
Diane sighed. "And I do? I don't know what I feel, except that ...." She sat down on the chair, a safe distance from Jo. "I think ... I've been afraid, all these years, to admit that I'm more attracted to women. I think I've been denying what I really am, and trying to be what my mom and dad wanted from me. Maybe I've always been that way, but didn't want to face that fact." Diane sat silently for a moment. "I think this is the first time I've ever really had to face my sexuality," she said softly.
Jo sat nervously, staring at Diane, wondering what was going through her mind. She was scared of losing Diane, but just as afraid of having to admit to herself that Diane _wouldn't_ have married her as Joel — not if she still had all these doubts. She suddenly realized that it would have been a huge mistake if Diane _had_ accepted a proposal. In just one moment's time, a huge hole was torn in her heart, and all her thoughts and dreams of a romantic, fairy-tale ending with Joel and Diane happily married were shattered.
"Do _you_ want to try?" Diane asked hesitantly, looking shyly at Jo, afraid of what she was going to hear.
Jo didn't have to think of what to say. "God, yes," she answered quickly. "No matter what I look like, I still love you with all my heart."
Diane rushed and wrapped herself around Jo. "And I love you," she echoed. She began to nibble playfully on Jo's ear, and within moments, the two were engaged in a deep, sensual kiss.
After they broke their kiss, the two sat down on the sofa. "Now what?" Jo asked.
Diane smiled. "Well, one thing we _don't_ have to do is move in together, since I'm already here."
"There may be a complication," Jo said hesitantly.
"Oh?" Diane sounded worried.
Jo nodded. "I've still got the powers. I'm still going to be some kind of 'super-nurse'. No matter what, I'll still feel compelled to help people who are sick, just like the past several days, even if it's not the virus. Sometimes, I can't fight the compulsion. That'll put a lot of strain on a relationship."
"I want to try," Diane said firmly. She kissed Jo again. "Will you go home with me — for Christmas?"
Jo hesitated. "What will your parents say?"
Diane looked down. "I don't know." She looked back at Jo confidently. "But if they won't accept who I am, and who I choose to be with, then it's their problem, not mine."
Jo hugged Diane as soon as Diane sat next to her, feeling elation for the first time in over a month. At the same time, though, she dreaded that Diane's parents wouldn't accept her choice, and Diane would have to choose between Jo and her parents. It wasn't a comforting thought. As she hugged her love, Jo saw the lids of the chests flicker. Three faces smiled at her, went through their "hello" routine, and then gave her a thumbs-up, before fading away again. Jo wondered if she'd ever see them again.
**********
"I can't imagine what it must have been like," Diane's mom said, Rebecca, sitting at the kitchen table with Jo and Diane. "It sounded awful on the news."
Jo exchanged a glance with Diane. "Actually, it was worse," Jo said. "No food, no water, no electricity, no gas, no police, no fire service, no doctors or hospitals — it was anarchy. And with the gangs, it was rather dangerous."
"I'm just so glad you're here." Rebecca looked at Diane, and she frowned. "What about that young man you were dating? Joel, was it? I thought you were going to bring him to visit."
Diane nearly choked on her tea. "Um," she stammered, "he ... couldn't come."
Jo came to Diane's rescue. "He ... he didn't make it," she said simply.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," Rebecca said sympathetically, putting her hand on Diane's. "I didn't know."
"It's okay, mom," Diane tried to sound both sad and reassuring to her mother. "We just dated a few times. It's not like we were engaged or anything."
Rebecca turned to Jo. "At least you could come with Diane to share the holiday with us," she said with a smile. She turned back to Diane. "I'm so glad they found a cure when they did."
"Actually," Jo interjected, "they found a vaccine to prevent the spread. But they don't have a cure. We stayed on lockdown until everyone had been vaccinated."
"Really? There were a few reports on television last night where some people claimed that they had the disease, but were cured."
It was Jo's turn to nearly choke. "Oh?" she managed to stammer.
"I guess you didn't get much news, did you? There were some pretty wild stories about some kind of superhero that was saving people before the CDC got there," Diane's mom said. Rebecca smiled knowingly. "Of course, we know how those kinds of rumors spread in emergencies."
Jo exchanged a quick glance with Diane. "Yes," she said, "quite. It would be ... impossible, wouldn't it."
Rebecca laughed. "Some of the things they were saying _were_ amusing, I suppose — like this person could cure people by touching them, and could appear and disappear." She sipped her tea. "It sounds like a comic-book hero, if you ask me. Some of the media were starting to call her 'Super Nurse'."
"Well, at least it's over," Diane replied, trying to change the subject.
The slam of the kitchen door interrupted the conversation. Diane's seventeen-year-old brother Mike came in, wincing in pain and holding his right arm. Even from a distance, it was obvious that his arm was bent in a way that wasn't natural.
"What happened?" Mom asked, concerned, as soon as she saw him. She was out of her chair in a flash, going to her son to care for him.
From the look on Mike's face, he wasn't thrilled with his mother doting on him as if he were five years old. "Some of the guys and I were playing football. I think ... I sprained my wrist."
"That's not sprained," Jo said quickly as she looked at his arm. She could feel her compassion stirring powerfully as she sensed Mike's pain, which was considerable, even though he was concealing it from his mother.
"We better get you to the emergency room, in case it's broken," Rebecca said. She turned to fetch her purse off a counter.
From the corner of her eye, Diane saw Jo starting to move, so she turned toward her, curious about what she was doing. As soon as she saw, her eyes widened in fear. "No," Diane said insistently, getting Rebecca's attention, too. "Jo, no!"
Jo wasn't paying attention to Diane, but was focused on the boy. She had felt the boy's pain through her power, and had seen that his arm was definitely broken. She also knew that an emergency room would take hours to get relief to the boy. As she had warned Diane, she couldn't help herself. The compulsion was too strong. She pulled her folded hat from her purse.
To Diane, things seemed to move in slow motion. She was terrified of what was going to happen, but she knew it was too late to stop it. Jo had unfolded her hat, with its Red Cross emblem. She lifted it toward her head automatically, without thinking of her action. All three in the kitchen — Diane, Diane's mom, and her brother Mike, were watching as the hat settled on Jo's head.
Jo's slacks and blouse began to reform, flowing into a long, striped pale-blue and white dress, with elbow-length sleeves with white cuffs adorned with red crosses. A white jumper formed to cover her front. Even her shoes changed from casual tennis shoes to something more formal, and Victorian in style. The power was still there, and Jo had activated it.
Without thinking, she stepped toward Mike. "Here, let me have a look," she said comfortingly. "I think we can do something to help you, okay?" Her soft, purring voice, coupled with her power, soothed him from the shock at Jo's unexpected transformation. He nodded, his eyes still showing his surprise, and possibly even a little fear, at her change. At the same time, there was something else in his gaze, like he was enchanted by Jo's appearance and accent. He _had_ been paying undue attention to her since she and Diane had arrived.
Jo held up her hand toward his arm, and her entire hand began to glow with its faint golden color. As soon as she touched Mike's arm, tension flowed from him as the healing power flowed in. Slowly, his arm straightened, and the bruising, which had started to show, faded. After a few moments, the glow faded. "There," Jo said with a friendly smile. "That's better, isn't it?" She turned, and upon seeing the stare of disbelief from Diane's mom, her mouth dropped open, and her hand lifted to cover it modestly, as she realized what she'd done. "Oh, damn!" Jo said in despair, turning and fleeing the room.
**********
Jo was trying to tuck the uniform into her suitcase, beneath some other clothing so it would be out of sight. Tears were trickling from her eyes as she thought about what she'd accidentally revealed to Diane's family. She'd done what Diane had begged her not to do — she'd allowed herself to change into "super nurse". She couldn't help herself, and she was slowly realizing how difficult life with the powers was going to be.
The knock on the door startled her. She finished hiding the uniform and checked that her clothes were straight. "Come in," she said, her voice trembling with nervousness.
Diane and Rebecca came in, closing the door behind them. Rebecca seemed a bit nervous.
"I'm going to run out of clothes at this rate," Jo tried to joke, with tears still moistening her cheeks. "All I'll have are those bloody uniforms!"
Diane wrapped Jo in a hug. "You were trying to help," she said soothingly. "It's okay." She was rubbing Jo's back as she hugged her. "It's okay."
"But I promised you that I wouldn't ..." Jo started to say
"Shhh," Diane purred. "You also told me that you couldn't help yourself sometimes. It's okay."
Rebecca was staring at Jo with a curious expression on her face. She was still a bit shocked at seeing Jo's outfit change, and then her power heal Mike's broken arm. "I promise we'll keep your secret," she said solemnly, adding, "As if anyone would believe us anyway!. Now, why don't you girls sit down, and we'll have a nice chat." She smiled. "I kind of suspect that you're hiding something."
Warily, Jo sat on her bed, with Diane beside her. Mom sat in a wooden chair by the wall, facing the two girls. "Those fantastic stories on TV and in the tabloids — they're true, aren't they?" Mom said with certainty.
Jo looked nervously at Diane for a moment, and then nodded toward Rebecca. "Yes," she admitted softly. Her tears hadn't stopped, only slowed.
"How? Is it — magic, or some kind of superpower or something?"
"It's a rather unbelievable story," Jo said, wiping her cheeks. "It's pretty hard to explain."
"You're a real-life superhero? You cured all those people?"
Jo nodded. "Several hundred, I should think." She tried to smile. "I wasn't keeping count."
"How? How did you get this power?"
"In for a penny, in for a pound," Jo muttered, shaking her head. She was _still_ not used to the British euphemisms and expressions. "One evening, when I was walking home with some supplies from one of the airdrop sites, the three wise men of a nativity scene came to life, and gave me their treasures." She was watching Rebecca's face carefully as she spoke, watching for any gesture of total disbelief or ridicule. "There were three gifts — like you would expect from magi . Each one gave a specific power — to move rapidly, to heal, and to be empathetic with illnesses and injuries." She smiled faintly. "That gives me a good bedside manner, so I can actually soothe sick and injured people. It lets me sense _where_ people need help."
"So ... does that mean you could sense Mike's pain?" Rebecca asked, sounding more curious than skeptical.
"Yes," Jo answered. "It's how I knew his arm was broken, and that he was in significant pain — quite a bit more than he was telling you, actually," she added.
"I see."
"I was told that the powers are permanent, too."
Rebecca stared at her a moment, then at Diane, and then fixed her gaze back on Jo. "This is going to sound a bit strange," she said hesitantly, "but were there ... other ... things that happened ...?"
Jo glanced nervously at Diane, who had the same worried expression. "What ... kind of things?"
Rebecca laughed nervously. "I was just thinking that it was ... too coincidental that something happened to Joel, and you'd never mentioned your friend Jo before." She chuckled. "I guess I just have a little too much motherly suspicion."
"Uh ...." Diane stammered, not knowing what to say.
"I know it sounds silly," Rebecca continued. Her smile faded when she saw Jo and Diane giving each other sideways, very concerned, glances. "Is there something else you're not telling me?"
"Why ... would you think ...?" Diane stammered.
Rebecca laughed. "Do you remember in high school, when Jerrod Delaney asked you to the prom?"
"Yeah, I went with him. So?"
"I noticed that your friends were all jealous that he asked you."
"Well, yeah. Everyone wanted to go out with him."
"Do you remember what you said about that?"
"No."
"You said that if one date was going to cause you to lose your friends, you'd just as soon not go."
"Oh. Yeah, I kind of remember that."
Rebecca smiled. "So why weren't you excited about a date with the hottest boy in school?" She saw Diane's eyes widen. "Oh, yes, dear, I noticed."
"But ..."
"Diane," Rebecca said sympathetically, "I'm your mother. I notice these things. Like how often you were asked on dates, and how many of those you turned down. And when you were in college, I noticed how you and, what was her name — Traci? How the two of you were looking at each other whenever we visited." She moved to the bed beside her daughter, and put her hand on Diane's arm. "Honey, we've wondered for many years if you were gay."
"I ... I don't know what to say," Diane whispered.
"Are you two romantically involved?"
Diane and Jo exchanged a nervous glance. "Yes," Diane answered softly.
"I thought so. And your ... romance ... with Joel?"
Diane felt tears on her cheeks. "I ... I don't know. I think ... I was trying to deny who I am. Maybe I was a little afraid of what you and Dad would think."
"I thought so. And if I may be so bold as to speculate, whatever magic gave Jo the powers also, somehow, transformed Joel into Jo?"
"Why would you say that?" Diane asked, her mouth agape in astonishment at her mother's guess.
Rebecca smiled. "When you talked about Joel, you sounded more like you were talking about your best friend than your lover. So, did you change?
"That's ... not possible ... to change a man into a woman."
Rebecca smiled gently. "Nor is it possible for someone to have powers to heal a broken arm, or cure a deadly virus. Yet it happened."
Jo stared at Rebecca for a few awkward seconds. Finally, she spoke. "I'm not ... I mean, I'm ...." She shook her head. "Damn, this is complicated." She saw that Rebecca was patiently waiting. "I know that I should have been quite upset," Jo said slowly, "but something in the magic that changed me kept me from panicking. I can think of the change, but it wouldn't permit me to have any emotional objection to it. Now, I don’t think there's any left. I think that, somehow, I've already adjusted to being Jo. It is quite ... weird."
"I would imagine so. I can't begin to think of how I'd feel if I suddenly had a magic gender change." She rose and walked to the door, pausing to look back at the two, still in shock from her guesses. "I guess that whatever magic gave you the powers also changed you so you could be happy," she speculated.
Diane and Jo looked up, startled by her comment. "I hadn't considered that," Jo said slowly.
Rebecca laughed. "And Mike is going to be so disappointed to find out you two are romantically involved." She saw Jo's eyebrows rise. "You didn't notice him fawning all over you? He's got a huge crush on you. And who could blame him? You're very attractive, and I'm given to understand that a British accent tends to drive American men crazy." She stood in the open doorway for a moment. "I promise I won't tell anyone your secret, okay?" She smiled at the two women. "Now that we're done with that, maybe we should do something to replace that outfit of yours that you lost," she said with a grin. "There are some very good after-Christmas sales, you know." She left the room, closing the door behind her.
"That was ... a lot different than I imagined."
Jo chuckled. "Your mom is a very perceptive lady." After a moment, she continued. "I do have one serious problem, though."
"Oh?"
"I don't have any ident. No passport, no drivers' license. I don't know how I'm going to get legal identification."
Diane smiled as she wrapped her arm around Jo and leaned her head on her shoulder. "I know someone who might be able to help us in that department," she said.
"Derek," Jo guessed with certainty. "He did say he owes us, and he _does_ have a lot of ... interesting ... connections."
"I'm still a little nervous," Diane said. "About a relationship, I mean. I've been living a lie for so long — what if I don't know what I really want? What if I'm ... confused, and just overreacting?"
Jo gave Diane a big kiss. "I think your mom was right. I think the magi gave me this gift, knowing things would work out. I think we were meant to be."
Diane thought a moment, and then kissed Jo. "I think you're right." She grinned. "Now let's go shopping and find you something really cute." Her eyes twinkled. "Something sexy that'll give my pesky little brother a bad case of blue balls, and later, to make me crazy with desire for you."
**********
Three figures stood amid a swirl of vapor and mist. "I told you it would work out," Moe said proudly.
"No thanks to you," Larry added, pointing at Curly.
"What did I do?"
"You forgot to read the instructions, for a start. And then you were drooling over her!" Moe said, twisting Curly's ear as he did so.
"Ow!" Curly protested. "Well, you forgot instructions, too!" he accused the other two.
"What are you, some kind of wise guy?" Moe demanded, grabbing Curly's nose, and then smacking his hand down with his other fist.
"Ow! Why do you always pick on me?" Curly whined.
"You deserved it," Larry said with an air of finality.
"So did you, you knucklehead!" Moe growled, poking Larry in the eyes.
"Ow!"
"Next time, I'm gonna be in charge," Curly whined.
"Oh yeah? Says who?"
"It's my turn! And we're going to be a little more modern. I think we'll appear as the Bee Gees," Curly announced, his arms crossed on his chest.
"Why you ...." Moe began. "I ought to murderize you for that!"
FIN
Comments
Oh Geeze. White leisure
Oh Geeze. White leisure suits with bell bottoms, platform soled alligator shoes, and bad hairdos. (Well, Barry's hair wasn't that bad)..
So, which two would be the twins, and which one Barry?
Or would they go for Andy instead?
Elrod - good story, definitely a delightful change of pace from you.
BW
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Nice.
Two words...home run.
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loads a fun!
very cute and funny story, thank you!
Glad to see
That you entered this one into the contest. Curly, Larry, and Moe as the three Magi was a nice, funny touch for a story that was near apocalyptic in the beginning. Fun story.
Maggie
So very original!
I really like how you have done this! No one ever accused the Stooges of being wise before. Now, wise guys...
SuZie
Fun!
That was kind of fun.
In spite of serious backdrop.
I guess we will never know where they real came from.
Aliens on a mission? Angels with a strange sense of humor?
Wizards from another dimension?
I guess it doesn't really matter.
I like, I like!
~Hypatia >i< ..:::
Very good
Thank you.
That
That was good and I'm glad you shared it with us.
Very entertaining with the 3 wise stooges.
-- Sleethr
Really cute. I mean visually
Really cute. I mean visually very clear and well written as always. Funny too. I'm not much for Christmas stories but I could not stop reading until the end...
Very funny.
It also had some echoes of what happened in a village near us back in 1664 when the plague arrived from London from fleas hidden in bolts of cloth. Eyam (pronounced Eem) voluntarily cut itself off from the rest of the local community until the plague had worked itself out. It's a well known and true story. Look it up.
You got most of the British expressions, too. Of course we use a lot of Americanisms now, like truck, but I prefer lorry, myself. Must admit I hadn't thought much about 'Happy' as opposed to 'Merry' Christmas; both are quite common here. However, as my middle name could be Scrooge (I find Christmas tedious, at least) I'm no expert on that :)
Thanks, Elrod
Robi
As she was a nurse from an older era
I figured the use of more British expressions like "Happy Christmas" would have been sort-of 'programmed' into the change.
The model I used in the drawing is a Victorian nurse outfit for Poser - when I saw that outfit, it made the whole story idea click.
Imagination is more important than knowledge
A. Einstein
The mix of darkness
and absurdity was deftly handled. It could've been an awful mess,but you pulled it off brilliantly! Of course the future may be tough when the government guys come looking for her, and they would be more than willing to take hostages.
Still this story is great.
Hugs
Grover
Still chuckling
I'm still laughing at the 3 wise stooges. It's a good story well told. A lot of Americanisms have even crept into our language (although I still prefer boot & bonnet).
Thanks for sharing.
Joanna
Oh! A wise guy, eh?"
Woo-woo-woo-woo. Nyuk nyuk nyuk.
I don't want to put a curse on you, but. . .. My picks haven't won since i was one of the judges many years back.
But . . . this is by far the best in the contest.
Your story might have been depressing without the comic relief. And . . . the Brit accent, which most certainly does drive American males wild.
Take Three Stooges and a big bottle of honey . . . and teleport me in the morning.
I loved it!
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
There are way too many good things
for me to say about this story. It would take too long. Let me summarize. Brava!
Holiday huggles,
Catherine Linda Michel
As a T-woman, I do have a Y chromosome... it's just in cursive, pink script.
This is fantastic
Really good and amazing.